China and Global AI Governance

China is an active participant in international law-making processes and is party to nearly all the major treaties relevant for global AI governance.

Treaty participation

To get a sense for China’s participation in treaties relevant for global AI governance, it may be best to group them in thematic clusters and compare it with other countries’ participation status. Within clusters conventions are ordered chronologically by date of adoption (except for optional protocols).

Human rights treaties

Year	Treaty	China	US	UK	India
1965	International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)	P	P	P	P
1966	International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)	S	P	P	P
1966	International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)	P	S	P	P
1979	Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)	P	S	P	P
1984	Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT)	P	P	P	S
1989	Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)	P	S	P	P
2000	―Optional protocol to the CRC on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (CRC-OP-SC)	P	P	P	P
1990	International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICMW)	N	N	N	N
2006	Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)	P	S	P	P

Party

Signatory

None

The difference between party and signatory is explained elsewhere on this website.

What this table shows is that China is party to almost all the major international human rights conventions, contrary to the US. Additional ratification status comparison can be found on the OHCHR website.

International transport

As road and rail transport treaties tend to be more regional, only participation in aviation and maritime shipping conventions will be compared, and only those mentioned on corresponding thematic pages of this website.

China is an active participant in international transport law-making, including as a host for conferences adopting such agreements. Incidentally, the twelfth Secretary General of ICAO (from 2015-2021), was a Chinese national, and also the first woman ever to hold this office.

Aviation

Year	Treaty	China	US	UK	India
1944	Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation	P	P	P	P
1970	Hague Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft	P	P	P	P
2010	―Beijing Protocol to the Hague Convention	S	S	S	P
1971	Montreal Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Civil Aviation	P	P	P	P
2010	Beijing Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Relating to International Civil Aviation	S	S	S	N

Maritime transport

Year	Treaty	China	US	UK	India
1948	IMO Convention	P	P	P	P
1974	International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea	P	P	P	P
1988	Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA)	P	P	P	P
2005	―Amending Protocol to SUA Convention	N	P	S	N

Crime

While China is party to a number of major international treaties in this domain, it has not yet joined the 123 states parties to the International Criminal Court.

Year	Treaty	China	US	UK	India
1956	INTERPOL Constitution	P	P	P	P
1997	International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings	P	P	P	P
1998	Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court	N	S	P	N
2000	UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime	P	P	P	P