This article examines how China engages in “rule weaponization”—the strategic reinterpretation, extension, and instrumentalization of international rules—to reshape the contours of the post-liberal order. Bridging insights from realism and constructivism, the study conceptualizes rule weaponization as a middle-level framework that captures how rising powers co-opt institutions rather than exit them. Using process tracing, cross-case comparison, and discourse analysis, the article analyzes four cases: China’s optical fiber anti-circumvention investigation, the EU–China tariff dispute over electric vehicles and pork, U.S.–China technology export controls, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit combined with Beijing’s military parade. Together, these cases demonstrate four mechanisms of rule weaponization: selective compliance, cross-issue retaliation, interpretive contestation, and dual-track institution building with narrative reframing. The findings suggest that China erodes the liberal order not by rejection but by mutation, incrementally reshaping global governance from within. The article concludes by highlighting theoretical contributions to international relations, methodological implications for studying institutional contestation, and policy lessons for both Western states and the Global South.

I. Introduction

Over the past decade, China has moved from being a rule-taker to becoming a rule-shaper in global politics. Its challenge to the liberal international order no longer rests solely on military modernization or economic statecraft, but increasingly on the strategic manipulation of rules and institutions. While liberal institutionalism traditionally views rules as stabilizers that constrain behavior (Keohane, 1984), and realist scholarship dismisses them as reflections of material power (Mearsheimer, 1994), China demonstrates a different logic: rules themselves can be weaponized. By selectively interpreting, extending, and linking rules across issue areas, Beijing leverages institutional frameworks to advance its interests in ways that undercut Western normative dominance.

China’s recent behavior provides fertile ground to examine this underexplored dynamic, which is visible in recent trade and diplomatic disputes. For example, China’s Ministry of Commerce launched its first anti-circumvention investigation in 2025, targeting U.S. optical fiber exports as a way to close legal loopholes (MOFCOM, 2025). In Europe, Beijing retaliated against new EU electric vehicle tariffs by imposing anti-dumping measures on pork, transforming an industrial dispute into a cross-sectoral bargaining tool (Reuters, 2025a). Beyond trade, China also uses multilateral platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to advance alternative visions of global order (Reuters, 2024). Together, these moves show how Beijing wields rules as instruments of contestation rather than simply complying with—or rejecting—them.

We vision the contribution of this study is threefold. Conceptually, it introduces “rule weaponization” as a framework for analyzing institutional contestation, bridging insights from realism, institutionalism, and norm contestation literatures (Farrell & Newman, 2019; Wiener, 2018). Empirically, it undertakes a multi-case analysis across trade, technology, and multilateral diplomacy to illustrate the mechanisms of selective compliance, cross-issue retaliation, dual-track institution building, and narrative reframing. Methodologically, it combines cross-sectoral process tracing with discourse and textual analysis of policy documents, official statements, and international media to identify patterns of rule weaponization. In doing so, this article aims to enrich the emerging debate on how China seeks not to abandon the rules-based order, but to redefine and instrumentalize it in ways that serve the construction of a post-liberal order (The Guardian, 2025).

II. Literature Review

The study of international institutions has long revolved around debates about whether rules constrain, reflect, or constitute state behavior. Liberal institutionalism argues that institutions reduce transaction costs and foster cooperation, treating rules as stabilizers that mitigate anarchy (Keohane, 1984). Realist critiques, however, dismiss such claims, arguing that rules are merely instruments of powerful states and thus epiphenomenal to material capabilities (Mearsheimer, 1994). A constructivist perspective adds that norms and shared values give rules their meaning and legitimacy, shaping state identities and interests over time (Wiener, 2018).

Recent scholarship has shifted toward examining contestation and adaptation within rule-based orders. Scholars of “norm contestation” show that rules are not static but constantly reinterpreted, with rising powers and domestic actors alike shaping their meaning (Wiener, 2018). Similarly, work on “imperfect adaptation” highlights how institutions like the WTO and IMF adjust unevenly in response to power redistribution, revealing structural limits to liberal institutional resilience (Zangl et al., 2016). These insights are crucial for understanding how China, as a rising power, interacts with global rules: not by rejecting them wholesale but by selectively adapting and reinterpreting them.

Another strand of literature relevant here is weaponized interdependence. Farrell and Newman (2019) demonstrate how asymmetric network structures—such as global finance and information systems—allow powerful states to exploit chokepoints for coercive leverage. While their work primarily examines the United States, it provides a conceptual bridge for analyzing how China may employ similar logics: exploiting legal or institutional chokepoints not through exit but through rule weaponization.

Despite these contributions, a clear gap remains. Much of the existing work focuses on Western states’ use of rules and networks, while the strategies of rising powers remain underexplored. Few studies theorize how China specifically transforms rules into weapons across multiple sectors—trade, technology, and multilateral diplomacy. This article addresses that gap by proposing rule weaponization as a mid-level concept linking power-based and norm-based accounts, and by empirically tracing its operation in China’s recent trade disputes, regulatory maneuvers, and multilateral initiatives.

III. Conceptual Framework: Rule Weaponization

III.1. Defining Rule Weaponization

This article defines rule weaponization as the deliberate use, reinterpretation, or creation of international rules in ways that strategically disadvantage rivals while protecting or enhancing one’s own position. Unlike simple rule compliance or violation, rule weaponization operates in the gray space of contestation: states invoke existing legal or institutional provisions, reinterpret their scope, or engineer new frameworks to advance national objectives. This practice allows rising powers like China to avoid the costs of exit while simultaneously eroding the liberal order’s normative core.

Rule weaponization thus differs from earlier notions such as weaponized interdependence, which emphasizes network chokepoints (Farrell & Newman, 2019), or norm contestation, which highlights the symbolic struggle over legitimacy (Wiener, 2018). Instead, it combines elements of both, focusing on how states manipulate rules to convert law and procedure into instruments of strategic competition.

III.2. Four Mechanisms of Rule Weaponization

1. Selective Compliance

China increasingly practices selective adherence to global rules, complying where rules serve domestic interests but innovating or stretching them when advantageous. A recent example is the Ministry of Commerce’s anti-circumvention investigation into U.S. optical fiber exports (MOFCOM, 2025). Rather than rejecting World Trade Organization (WTO) disciplines, China expanded its trade defense toolkit by deploying a WTO-compatible measure in a novel way. This reflects a shift from passive compliance toward active reinterpretation of rules as instruments of defense and offense.

2. Cross-Issue Retaliation

A second mechanism involves linking disputes across different issue areas, thereby multiplying bargaining leverage. When the European Union imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, Beijing retaliated by launching an anti-dumping probe on European pork (Reuters, 2025a). Such cross-issue retaliation illustrates how rules can be weaponized by broadening the scope of contestation, forcing adversaries to weigh costs across sectors rather than within a single policy domain.

3. Dual-Track Institution Building

Rule weaponization also occurs through the simultaneous use of existing institutions and the creation of alternative platforms. China continues to operate within the WTO framework but also invests heavily in parallel organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and BRICS+ (Reuters, 2024). This dual-track strategy allows Beijing to exploit liberal institutions when useful while building “non-Western” arenas that normalize alternative rule sets. It represents an institutional hedging strategy, using both compliance and innovation to expand room for maneuver.

4. Narrative Reframing

Finally, China engages in discursive contestation, reframing legitimacy around sovereignty, development, and efficiency rather than liberal rights or participation. By presenting its measures as defending “fairness” or “development rights,” Beijing shifts the normative ground on which rules are evaluated. For instance, trade defense actions are justified not as protectionism but as safeguarding the interests of developing countries, aligning with Global South priorities (The Guardian, 2025). Narrative reframing allows China to weaponize rules not just procedurally but also symbolically, reshaping the standards of legitimacy themselves.

Together, these four mechanisms—selective compliance, cross-issue retaliation, dual-track institution building, and narrative reframing—illustrate the multifaceted ways in which China transforms rules into weapons of statecraft. They highlight how Beijing avoids the reputational and structural costs of exiting the global system while simultaneously eroding the liberal order’s normative foundations.

IV. Methodology

IV.1. Research Design

This article adopts a qualitative, multi-method design to analyze how China engages in rule weaponization across trade, technology, and multilateral diplomacy. The research strategy combines process tracing, cross-case comparison, and discourse analysis, enabling both fine-grained causal reconstruction and broader comparative insights. This approach follows methodological recommendations in international relations to blend within-case detail with comparative leverage, thereby enhancing explanatory validity (George & Bennett, 2005; Bennett & Checkel, 2015).

IV.2. Process Tracing

Process tracing is employed to reconstruct the causal mechanisms through which China transforms legal and institutional frameworks into strategic tools. For instance, in the Ministry of Commerce’s first anti-circumvention investigation targeting U.S. optical fiber exports, the analysis traces how domestic industry petitions, bureaucratic decision-making, and WTO-compatible legal provisions converged to produce the final ruling (MOFCOM, 2025). Similarly, in the EU-China tariff dispute, process tracing elucidates the chain of events beginning with Brussels’ anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles and culminating in Beijing’s retaliatory anti-dumping probe on European pork (Reuters, 2025a). By following these sequences, the study identifies how rules move from their formal status as regulatory frameworks to their instrumentalization as weapons of economic statecraft.

IV.3. Cross-Case Comparison

To assess whether these mechanisms generalize beyond individual cases, the study conducts a structured comparison across three institutional arenas: trade defense, technology and security regulation, and multilateral diplomacy. Holding the actor constant while varying the rule environment makes it possible to identify recurring strategies that constitute rule weaponization. This comparative logic is grounded in historical-institutionalist methods that emphasize variation across institutional settings to reveal underlying causal patterns (Mahoney & Rueschemeyer, 2003).

IV.4. Discourse Analysis

In addition to institutional actions, this article examines the discursive dimension of rule weaponization. Drawing on constructivist insights into norm contestation (Wiener, 2018), it employs discourse analysis of Chinese official statements, policy documents, and international media coverage to assess how Beijing frames its actions. For example, anti-dumping probes are justified as defending “fairness” and “development rights,” while participation in the SCO is narrated as promoting “sovereignty” and “multipolarity” (The Guardian, 2025; Reuters, 2024). Discourse analysis reveals how China weaponizes rules not only through procedures but also through narrative reframing that shifts the standards of legitimacy.

IV.5. Data Sources

The empirical foundation of this study rests on triangulation of sources. Primary legal documents, including MOFCOM announcements and EU regulations, are analyzed alongside independent journalistic accounts from Reuters, the Associated Press, and The Guardian, as well as relevant secondary literature in international political economy and norm theory (Farrell & Newman, 2019; Wiener, 2018; Zangl et al., 2016). This combination of data ensures that findings are not artifacts of a single type of evidence but reflect convergent patterns across multiple perspectives.

IV.6. Methodological Contribution

Methodologically, the contribution of this article lies in demonstrating how rule weaponization can be operationalized as an observable strategy across diverse policy domains. By blending causal process tracing with cross-case comparison and discourse analysis, the study shows that rules are neither static constraints, as liberal institutionalists assume, nor mere epiphenomena of power, as realists claim, but dynamic instruments of contestation. This multi-method design thus advances the broader research agenda of examining how rising powers like China alter the functioning of international order not by abandoning institutions but by reinterpreting and instrumentalizing them.

V. Empirical Analysis

V.1. Case 1: The Optical Fiber Anti-Circumvention Investigation

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) launched its first-ever anti-circumvention investigation in March 2025, targeting imports of cut-off wavelength-shifted single-mode optical fiber originating from the United States. The investigation was initiated at the request of domestic producers who alleged that U.S. exporters were exploiting product differentiation to bypass China’s existing anti-dumping duties on non-dispersion-shifted single-mode optical fiber. After six months of inquiry, MOFCOM concluded that American firms had indeed reconfigured their export practices to evade Chinese measures, and on September 4, 2025, the ministry announced that anti-circumvention duties would be imposed going forward (MOFCOM, 2025). This case marked a significant institutional milestone, representing China’s first application of the anti-circumvention instrument, a trade defense tool recognized under World Trade Organization (WTO) disciplines but rarely used by Beijing in the past.

Analyzed through the lens of rule weaponization, the optical fiber case demonstrates China’s transition from passive compliance with global trade norms to an active and innovative user of institutional mechanisms. Instead of directly violating WTO obligations or disregarding liberal trade norms, Beijing expanded its repertoire of legally sanctioned remedies to protect domestic industry. By invoking anti-circumvention provisions, China effectively closed a legal loophole that allowed foreign exporters to avoid duties while simultaneously presenting its actions as WTO-compatible. In this sense, selective compliance was weaponized: China not only adhered to international rules but leveraged them creatively to shift the costs of compliance onto its adversary.

The case also reveals the domestic–international nexus of rule weaponization. On one hand, the investigation was driven by petitions from domestic firms in China’s optical fiber sector, reflecting bottom-up pressure for state protection. On the other, the state framed the measure as an impartial legal process conducted in accordance with global trade norms, thereby insulating itself from accusations of protectionism (Reuters, 2025a). By situating the decision within a transparent investigative procedure, China maintained a façade of rule-based governance even while strategically deploying the rules to constrain U.S. exporters.

This case thus exemplifies the mechanism of selective compliance outlined in the conceptual framework. It illustrates how Beijing selectively follows global rules when they provide a shield against criticism, while also stretching their interpretation to maximize strategic utility. In doing so, China advanced its economic security interests without bearing the reputational costs associated with outright non-compliance. More broadly, the optical fiber investigation demonstrates that rule weaponization can serve as a subtle yet potent tool for rising powers: rather than dismantling the institutional order, it allows them to reshape its application from within, undermining the liberal order’s normative coherence while maintaining legal legitimacy.

V.2. Case 2: The EU–China Tariff Dispute on Electric Vehicles and Pork

In June 2025, the European Commission announced provisional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), citing evidence that state subsidies created unfair competitive advantages for Chinese manufacturers within the European single market. Tariffs ranging as high as 45 percent were imposed, marking one of the most consequential trade defense actions taken by Brussels against Beijing in recent years (Reuters, 2024). China responded within weeks by launching an anti-dumping investigation into imports of European pork and related products, ultimately requiring importers to pay deposits ranging from 15.6 to 62.4 percent as a condition for customs clearance (Associated Press, 2025). Although agriculture and automotive sectors are structurally unrelated, Beijing’s retaliation underscored its willingness to weaponize trade rules by linking disputes across distinct issue areas.

Viewed through the framework of rule weaponization, this case illustrates the mechanism of cross-issue retaliation. By broadening the scope of contestation, China increased the bargaining costs for the European Union and leveraged its market size in multiple domains simultaneously. Crucially, Beijing did not frame its actions as arbitrary retaliation but as a lawful application of anti-dumping rules, thereby presenting its measures as consistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) disciplines (MOFCOM, 2025). This strategy allowed China to convert a defensive posture into an offensive one: while Brussels positioned itself as protecting the integrity of the European market from subsidized imports, Beijing countered by portraying itself as defending the rights of domestic farmers and consumers from unfair European practices.

This dispute also highlights the political economy of issue-linkage. The Chinese EV industry is a strategic sector tied to industrial policy priorities such as Made in China 2025 and global ambitions in clean energy technology. By contrast, the European pork industry is highly dependent on the Chinese market, making it an attractive target for countermeasures. By invoking trade defense procedures in agriculture, Beijing exploited the EU’s asymmetric exposure to retaliation, creating incentives for European policymakers to reconsider the costs of escalating trade conflict (Reuters, 2025c). Thus, cross-issue retaliation operated not only as a symbolic assertion of reciprocity but also as a materially effective bargaining tool.

More broadly, the EV–pork dispute demonstrates how rule weaponization destabilizes the liberal order’s assumption that trade disputes remain confined within sectoral boundaries. By shifting the locus of conflict from industrial goods to agriculture, China blurred the lines between legal adjudication and strategic retaliation. The result is a more volatile and less predictable trade regime in which rules are still formally respected but functionally repurposed as instruments of power. In this way, the case exemplifies how rising powers exploit institutional flexibility to multiply bargaining leverage, thereby eroding the stabilizing role that trade rules were originally designed to play.

V.3. Case 3: U.S.–China Technology Controls and the Struggle for Interpretive Authority

In September 2025, the United States announced the revocation of “fast-track” export approval status for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) facilities in Nanjing, requiring case-by-case license applications for the export of advanced equipment to China (Reuters, 2025d). This move was part of a broader tightening of semiconductor export controls that extended beyond cutting-edge technologies to include mature process nodes, thereby signaling Washington’s intent to use regulatory instruments expansively. U.S. officials justified the decision on the grounds of national security, arguing that even legacy chips could be integrated into Chinese military and surveillance systems. From Washington’s perspective, invoking security exceptions within trade and export control regimes was consistent with the sovereign right to protect critical technologies (The Guardian, 2025).

China rejected this interpretation, framing the measures as an abuse of security exceptions and a violation of the principle of fair competition. Chinese officials argued that the United States was distorting the rules-based order by expanding the definition of “security” to encompass virtually all forms of technological competition (MOFCOM, 2025). At the same time, Beijing advanced alternative narratives that emphasized “development rights” and the legitimate aspirations of developing countries to access technology for modernization. This rhetorical strategy sought to rally support from the Global South, portraying U.S. restrictions as a form of technological protectionism incompatible with the spirit of the multilateral trading system (Reuters, 2025e).

This dispute highlights the mechanism of interpretive contestation, in which both sides invoked the same set of international rules but advanced divergent interpretations of their scope and intent. For the United States, the rules surrounding export controls and security exceptions provided legal justification for tightening restrictions. For China, the same rules were presented as being hollowed out by U.S. overreach, undermining the predictability and neutrality of the global system. Unlike the optical fiber case, where China weaponized rules through selective compliance, or the EV–pork dispute, where it engaged in cross-issue retaliation, here the weaponization occurred at the discursive level of interpretation. By contesting the meaning of “security” and “fairness,” both actors transformed rules into instruments of narrative and strategic competition.

The broader significance of this case lies in its demonstration that rules are not merely applied but constantly reinterpreted. When great powers engage in interpretive battles, the stability of the liberal order depends less on the presence of rules than on shared understandings of their meaning (Wiener, 2018). By expanding the boundaries of “security” and reframing “development rights” as a counter-narrative, Washington and Beijing both contribute to the erosion of normative consensus. In this way, the struggle over export controls illustrates how rule weaponization can operate through interpretive authority, destabilizing the epistemic foundations of the global trade and technology regime.

V.4. Case 4: The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit and Beijing’s Military Parade

In September 2025, China hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, where President Xi Jinping advanced a vision of a “more just and equitable global governance system.” This included explicit calls for multipolarity, opposition to protectionism, and commitments of financial assistance to member states (Reuters, 2025f). The summit underscored Beijing’s use of alternative multilateral platforms to complement its continued participation in global institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). By amplifying the SCO’s role, China showcased its dual-track approach: working within Western-built institutions while simultaneously cultivating parallel arenas where different norms—centered on sovereignty, development, and non-interference—take precedence.

This message was reinforced days later through a large-scale military parade in Beijing commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the parade served as both a demonstration of military capability and a symbolic act of coalition-building among authoritarian states (The Guardian, 2025). Beyond signaling military strength, the event functioned as a performative narrative of solidarity, presenting China not as a challenger from outside the international system but as a leader of an alternative normative community. The juxtaposition of multilateral diplomacy at the SCO summit with the spectacle of the parade highlighted China’s ability to weaponize both institutions and symbols in pursuit of legitimacy.

Analyzed through the framework of rule weaponization, this case illustrates the mechanisms of dual-track institution building and narrative reframing. On the one hand, China leveraged the SCO to institutionalize norms that diverge from liberal universalism, thereby constructing a parallel rule environment more aligned with its preferences. On the other hand, the parade recast historical memory and geopolitical alignment into a discursive claim: that legitimacy derives not from liberal rights but from sovereignty, stability, and developmental performance. Together, these moves demonstrate how China simultaneously operates within and beyond existing institutions, weaponizing rules procedurally through multilateral forums and symbolically through narrative power.

The broader implication is that Beijing’s strategy erodes the singularity of the liberal order not by rejecting rules but by multiplying them. By offering parallel platforms and alternative narratives, China fragments the normative space of global governance, making it harder for Western states to claim a monopoly on legitimate rule-making. In this sense, the SCO summit and the Beijing parade exemplify how rule weaponization functions not only through legal and economic tools but also through the construction of competing orders that challenge the epistemic authority of liberal norms.

VI. Discussion: Theoretical & Policy Implication

VI.1. Theoretical Implications

The concept of rule weaponization contributes theoretically by positioning itself as a middle ground between realism and constructivism. From a realist perspective, rules have traditionally been seen as epiphenomenal, reflecting underlying distributions of material power (Mearsheimer, 1994). Constructivist approaches, by contrast, argue that rules and norms shape identities and interests through shared understandings (Wiener, 2018). Rule weaponization complicates this binary by showing that rules are simultaneously instruments of power and sites of meaning-making. Rising powers like China do not exit institutions or ignore rules outright; instead, they strategically reinterpret, extend, and redeploy them. This dynamic is particularly visible in the optical fiber anti-circumvention case, where Beijing innovatively used WTO-compatible measures, and in the technology dispute, where both the United States and China sought interpretive dominance over the meaning of “security.” Thus, rules are not merely stabilizers or reflections but contested tools through which states advance competing visions of order. Theoretically, this underscores the need to reconceptualize international institutions as both arenas and weapons, where rising powers actively co-opt rules to challenge the liberal order’s normative monopoly (Farrell & Newman, 2019).

VI.2. Methodological Implications

Methodologically, the study demonstrates the value of combining multi-case comparison with discourse analysis to study rule contestation. Process tracing within each case identifies the causal mechanisms by which China transforms rules into instruments of leverage, while cross-case comparison isolates recurring strategies across trade, technology, and multilateral diplomacy. Discourse analysis complements these methods by highlighting how rule weaponization operates at the level of narrative framing—through the invocation of “fairness,” “sovereignty,” and “development rights.” This methodological synthesis validates the utility of a mixed interpretive-comparative approach in international political economy. It moves beyond single-case analyses that risk overgeneralization, while also extending constructivist approaches by empirically grounding normative contestation in procedural practices. Future research could apply this framework to other rising powers, such as India or Russia, or even to Western actors like the European Union, to test the generalizability of rule weaponization beyond the Sino-Western context. In doing so, scholars could assess whether the strategy reflects a uniquely Chinese response to liberal order dominance or a broader repertoire available to states navigating asymmetric institutional environments (George & Bennett, 2005; Mahoney & Rueschemeyer, 2003).

VI.3. Policy Implications

The policy implications of rule weaponization are profound. For Western policymakers, the liberal order is unlikely to collapse through open defection but rather to erode through rule mutation. When China invokes anti-circumvention procedures, links EV tariffs with pork anti-dumping, or reframes export controls as development rights, it demonstrates that the rules-based order can be hollowed out from within while retaining formal legality. This challenges the West’s ability to enforce compliance through naming and shaming, as Beijing frames its actions as consistent with global norms (Reuters, 2025a; Associated Press, 2025). For the Global South, China’s discursive emphasis on fairness, sovereignty, and development resonates more strongly than liberal universalist claims centered on individual rights. By presenting itself as a defender of “development rights,” Beijing appeals to states that share similar grievances about asymmetry in the global system, thereby shifting the legitimacy calculus. Over time, this may generate broader coalitions supportive of China’s institutional initiatives, further fragmenting global governance. The policy challenge for liberal states, therefore, lies not only in countering violations but in addressing the deeper normative contestation that enables rules to be wielded as weapons of alternative order-building.

VII. Conclusion

This article set out to answer the research question: How does China use rule weaponization to reshape the post-liberal order? Building on insights from institutionalist, realist, and constructivist theories, it introduced “rule weaponization” as a conceptual lens to analyze how rising powers strategically manipulate rules. Unlike traditional accounts that treat rules as stabilizers (Keohane, 1984), reflections of material power (Mearsheimer, 1994), or normative constructs (Wiener, 2018), this study demonstrated that rules can simultaneously function as instruments of power and as contested sites of meaning.

Through four case studies—the optical fiber anti-circumvention investigation, the EU–China EV and pork tariff dispute, the U.S.–China technology export controls, and the SCO summit with Beijing’s military parade—the analysis identified four mechanisms of rule weaponization: selective compliance, cross-issue retaliation, interpretive contestation, and dual-track institution building with narrative reframing. Collectively, these cases revealed a systematic pattern in China’s engagement with international institutions. Rather than abandoning the rules-based order, Beijing leverages its provisions to protect domestic industries, retaliate strategically, reinterpret security exceptions, and promote alternative normative frameworks. This repertoire allows China to erode the liberal order from within, gradually reshaping its contours while avoiding the reputational costs of outright defection.

The findings have both theoretical and methodological significance. Theoretically, they establish rule weaponization as a mid-level concept that bridges realism and constructivism, showing that institutions are not merely constraints or empty shells but contested tools of statecraft. Methodologically, the study validated the use of multi-case process tracing combined with discourse analysis to capture both procedural practices and narrative strategies. This approach opens avenues for comparative research across other rising and established powers, including India, Russia, and the European Union, to assess the generalizability of rule weaponization as a broader phenomenon.

Looking forward, future research could explore how rule weaponization operates beyond trade and security, particularly in domains such as digital governance, climate agreements, and global health regimes. Additionally, quantitative methods—such as text mining of official statements or event data analysis of dispute initiation—could complement qualitative approaches, providing a more systematic measure of the intensity and frequency of rule weaponization. Ultimately, the concept underscores that the erosion of the liberal order is unlikely to result from its outright rejection. Instead, it will occur through incremental mutation and reinterpretation of its very rules, a process in which China plays an increasingly central role.