Position of the People’s Republic of China Towards the Crisis in Libya in 2011

The subject of the analysis is the attitude of the People’s Republic of China towards the crisis in Libya in 2011. The problem is considered taking into account both the bilateral China-Libya and multilateral situation at the time. The paper discusses issues such as China’s cooperation with Libya before the crisis and Beijing’s actions at consecutive stages of the crisis, focusing mainly on the evolution of China’s position towards the question of imposing and implementing sanctions against Libya as well as towards the political representation of the Libyan rebel groups. The discussion is presented in the context of Beijing’s compliance with its traditionally professed foreign policy principles and its attitude towards the concept of “Responsibility to Protect”. The case of the Libyan crisis has shown that China does not have a coherent strategy for dealing with internal military conflicts that generate humanitarian disasters in foreign states.