Much has been written about China's active engagement and progressive approach to the “responsibility to protect,” a norm that reframes state sovereignty not as a right but as a responsibility. China's response to the “Report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK),” which invokes the norm, however, challenges existing literature. China flatly refuses to uphold the responsibility to protect in the case of the DPRK, despite using previously supported standards to invoke the norm elsewhere and the report's dozens of consensual recommendations. This article is the first to systematically investigate how China has responded to the report. It shows that China's responses are shaped by its exceptionalism and concerns that the responsibility to protect could lead to regime change. I conclude with implications for the broader question of China's engagement with international norms in its near abroad. In my discussion, I draw on interviews with Korean and Chinese foreign policy elites, UN and US officials and DPRK human rights advocates, as well as primary and secondary documents.
