Scottish Centre for China Research

When: Wednesday 19 November 2025 at 4–5.30pm 

Where: Board Room, 29 Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow and online with registration here. 

 

Abstract: China frequently accuses Western governments of interfering in its domestic affairs. International lawyers might be inclined to dismiss these accusations as cynical misrepresentations of the doctrine of non-intervention. This article questions that view, drawing on Chinese State practice and recent Chinese literature. It argues that China propagates a new and distinctive approach to the doctrine of non-intervention, by which the doctrine changes depending on who is interfering with whom, in what context and for what purpose. This approach could also be increasingly useful to Western governments who seek to challenge pernicious forms of foreign influence over liberal democratic processes. Hence, Chinese and non-Chinese approaches to non-intervention might converge. This approach arguably reflects the concerns that originally animated the doctrine and is in line with ideas that have been advocated for by non-aligned States for at least 70 years. Whether this is a desirable development is another question. The article concludes with a critique of the new doctrine of non-intervention.

Short Bio: Dr Ewan Smith joined UCL Laws as Associate Professor of Public Law in 2022. Prior to that he was a Fellow of Christ Church, Oxford, the Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and an Early Career Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights. Ewan read law at Oxford, at the University of Paris and at Harvard Law School. He has previously worked at Peking, Tsinghua and Renmin Universities in China and at the National University of Singapore. In 2023 Ewan was a Hauser Fellow at New York University Law School and in 2024 he was a Visiting Professor at Faculty of Law of the University of Bologna. Ewan is admitted to practice in New York, where he worked for Debevoise and Plimpton LLP. Between 2005 and 2015, he worked for the UK Foreign Office. Ewan’s work considers how political rules govern powerful institutions, how law shapes foreign relations, and compares the constitutional orders of China, the UK and the United States. This April he will co-convene a British Academy funded conference on Parity of Esteem.