Global Norm-maker as China’s New Brand? An Analysis of the Responsible Cobalt Initiative (RCI)

China’s influence in extractive industry sectors worldwide has expanded in tandem with the rising global demand for the natural resources integral to producing such low carbon products as electric vehicles. Many Chinese-operated mining projects overseas have hence generated broad concern on the ground about their negative environmental and social impacts. Chinese actors, meanwhile, have begun to engage with transnational extractive governance initiatives entailing a transparency norm that requires disclosure of environmental and social risks. China, however, appears to be reshaping this transparency norm through its establishment of the Responsible Cobalt Initiative (RCI)—a China-led “transnational” governance initiative facilitating a Chinese version of that norm, known as “thin” transparency. Based on process-tracing and semi-structured interviews, in applying Acharya’s (2018) norm-circulation model, this paper examines what type of Chinese domestic actors act as norm-makers and under what conditions. The study thus refines certain core analytical concepts of the model. The RCI case stands alone in highlighting China’s growingly normative role in contesting the transparency norm through transnational interactions among Chinese and international actors in global extractives governance. The result shows China’s norm-making as a strategic choice of a local idea-shifter to cope with China’s internal and external legitimacy crises and to strengthen its emerging identity as a responsible great power. This study rejects the notion of China as a monolithic actor, rather suggesting a multi-agency and multilevel approach to understanding the complex realities of China’s normative leadership in global governance.