On May 30, 2025, the Convention on the Establishment of the International Organization for Mediation was signed in Hong Kong, China, with 33 States as the founding parties. Led by China, the International Organization for Mediation (IOMed) represents the first permanent inter-governmental dispute settlement organization dedicated to mediation. Before the IOMed era, China had already demonstrated a keen interest in alternative dispute resolution, evidenced by its signing of the Singapore Convention on Mediation and active promotion of mediation in ISDS reform processes. Now, with this permanent organization taking shape, certain questions arise: By leading the institutionalization of mediation, is China substantially gravitating toward a more flexible, diplomatic approach in dispute resolution? If so, is there a more sophisticated explanation beyond the knee-jerk reaction that strong sovereignty-conscious states simply won’t risk adjudication’s uncertainty? This post seeks to unpack these questions by explaining China’s preference for mediation in both functional and strategic terms, understanding how, like water gradually wearing through stone, China’s patient advocacy for mediation may be reshaping international dispute settlement.
Mediation as a Handy Tool
Scholars have offered sound explanations for China’s preference for non-adjudication (see, for instance, here and here), including cultural roots favoring non-confrontational methods and distrust of allegedly Western-dominated international adjudication. Yet China’s approach to mediation shows additional nuances, particularly when we examine the term as defined in the IOMed Convention. Instead of using the UN definition of mediation as “a method … where a third party intervenes to reconcile the claims of the contending parties and to advance his own proposals aimed at a mutually acceptable compromise solution,” the Convention follows the UNCITRAL model law approach, which explicitly restricts mediators’ role by stressing that mediators lack the power to impose solutions on the parties. The very reason for tirelessly flagging such a well-known fact is to highlight mediation’s voluntary nature, which becomes particularly crucial given the types of disputes China frequently encounters. More precisely, such an emphasis is of simultaneous self-affirmation and declaration, addressing China’s practical needs in managing politically sensitive disputes, while signaling to its audiences China’s commitment to non-coercion.
To understand this duality, one should associate mediation’s function with the dispute settlement scenarios in which China is frequently involved. Many China-related international disputes, mostly investment and commercial ones, arise within broader political contexts. This is prominent in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s flagship foreign policy that aims to form partnerships with other developing countries primarily through economic cooperation. Apart from the fact that political affairs and the needs of dispute settlement are deeply intertwined here, China, particularly, plays both the role of a party to disputes and of a potential mediator in such disputes arising from initiatives it leads (for instance, see here). Given the BRI’s narrative of shared development – accompanied by power asymmetry – there emerged a need for gentler dispute settlement mechanisms to alleviate potential backlash about intervention and exploitation that such asymmetric partnerships might otherwise lead to. This need for non-coercive mechanisms becomes even pronounced when China assumes the mediator role in BRI-related disputes, since any heavy-handed approaches may confirm suspicions of dominance in the politically sensitive context. As a result of the picture, dispute settlement needs to serve the purposes of conflict management and relationship maintenance, while ensuring that nothing will be ignited in triggering concerns among other states. Here is where mediation comes into play: on one hand, its non-confrontational nature facilitates preserving ongoing collaborative relationships; on the other, its emphasis on non-coercion addresses partners’ primary concerns.
At the same time, China’s preference for mediation also forms a beneficial symmetry with the soft law foundations in its multilateral cooperation. Tan Hsien-Li made an apt observation on the Asia-Pacific region’s interest in soft law and how it was intended to be a pillar in the institutional design of multilateral cooperation and international law-making within the region. Her observation also holds true in the Chinese case. Against the BRI backdrop, cooperation is structured through memoranda of understanding and partnership agreements rather than binding treaties. To be sure, instead of adopting legalized terms, norms such as “memorandum,” “partnership,” “declaration”, and “consensus” are frequently and deliberately invoked, implying that China strategically designed the overall collaborative frameworks as soft and flexible. Such soft law roots create a functional requirement for compatible dispute settlement mechanisms that won’t undermine the framework’s essential fluidity. Mediation is thus preferred as it allows for solutions that can evolve alongside the relationship itself, preserving the adaptability and consensual nature that makes these soft frameworks attractive to participants in the first place.
A Chinese Taxonomy of Disputes
One popular explanation frames mediation as a retreat from adjudication, stemming from one’s inability to accept losing the adjudication game. Proponents would confidently point to the South China Sea case as evidence, viewing China’s indignant reaction as an inability to accept unfavorable outcomes. However, equating the strong preference for mediation with aversion to uncertainties, including potential losses, misses the fuller picture. While it’s plausible to say that a strong sovereignty-conscious state is more likely to resist adjudication, this does not fully account for China’s increasing participation in investment and commercial arbitration or its unwavering support for the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. The distinction appears to hinge not on the economic stakes or legal complexity, but on whether the dispute touches upon what China perceives as core sovereign prerogatives or territorial integrity. In this regard, it’s more accurate to imagine that China maintains a taxonomy of disputes, adopting defensive postures toward what it considers non-justiciable matters.
China’s conception of non-justiciable issues largely aligns with conventional understandings, referring to disputes that are politically entangled and often involve a state’s supreme honour and fundamental interests. Such a classification has long been condemned as overly dignitarian and somewhat atavistic. Lauterpacht, for instance, eloquently argued that “there is no dispute which cannot be settled … by a judicial award given on the basis of law” – as demonstrated in his analysis of how all controversies between states are inherently political, but become “judicial questions” when submitted to judicial resolution. Yet, for China, this is precisely the crux where it found another story of distortion. Squeezing politically entangled matters to fit within existing legal frameworks will amount to a transformation that distills the complex political, economic, cultural, and historical backgrounds into legal characterizable issues, which inevitably reshape the contour, even the very nature, of the subject matter. What becomes determinative, then, will not be dissecting the dispute itself, but the character of the legal rules, norms, and frameworks chosen to be applied. Concerns thus arise, not merely for the lack of procedural or legal impartially (one standard explanation for resisting adjudication), or the dissatisfaction of inadequately embroiling disputes within the scope of jurisdiction (as China claimed in the South China Sea case). They flow from the mismatch between realities and legally constructed facts that adjudication requires, which involves a priori judgment that scarcely depicts the dispute comprehensively, let alone settles it with authenticity. In this sense, mediation helps to recover the non-legal elements lost in adjudicative rhetoric and to suspend disputes before they become intensified through entering the adjudication stage.
True, the taxonomy is rough, as anything can be contextually determined as fundamental and internal within a state’s sole judgment – ultimately wading into the swamp of political articulation. But this taxonomy, whether rooted in sincere belief or strategic calculation (and likely both), at least shows a boundary for understanding China’s differentiated approach to dispute settlement. Within this framework, China adopts a pragmatic stance, remaining open to various mechanisms in economic and commercial disputes where flexibility serves its interests. However, when disputes touch upon what it perceives as core sovereign prerogatives, the approach turns into an uncompromising defensive posture.
Conclusion
The establishment of the IOMed brings back an opportunity to revisit the dichotomic choices between adjudication and non-adjudication. At this juncture, China has attempted to transform its self-interested preferences into a broader normative project through mediation’s institutionalization. It promotes the legitimation of a method reflecting its own experiences, pushing mediation towards institutionalized impartiality and professionalism, thereby distancing itself from the traditional models that hinge largely upon the authority of mediators. Further, and perhaps most intriguingly, through establishing a permanent institution, China is acting as an architect that offers an alternative way to tackle dispute settlement, one that promises to reshape the (allegedly rigid) status quo. With this ambition, the IOMed becomes an experiment in China’s reimagination of dispute settlement. It can, ideally, serve as an effective instrument that may attract like-minded states. It may also, at the same time, remain a form of echo chamber among China and its alliances.
Be that as it may, China has already succeeded in entering into the game, not merely as a powerful state with preferences, but as a leading actor instructing on how disputes should be understood and managed. This influence may prove to be of the water-dripping-on-stone variety: gradual, persistent, and ultimately transformative in normalizing the idea that certain disputes are better suited to non-adjudicative means. The question that remains is whether this attempt to position itself as a thought leader will be accepted by the international community as genuine wisdom or recognized as another sophisticated power projection. The answer may determine not only the fate of the IOMed, but also China’s broader ambitions to reshape the normative foundations of international dispute settlement.
