Objective In the context of global climate change, drought has become a critical issue on the global governance agenda. This study aims to examine the evolutionary trajectory of drought issues within the framework of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and to analyze China's role positioning and selected pathways of engagement in the relevant negotiations.

Methods From the perspective of international regime effectiveness, this study adopted a combination of process tracing, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, the best-worst method (BWM), and Boston Matrix analysis to evaluate China's negotiation behavior on drought issues across the Conference of the Parties (COP1-COP16), operationalized through two primary dimensions: willingness to participate and capacity to participate.

Results The results showed that the drought agenda under the UNCCD progressed through five distinct stages: the initial regime-building stage, the monitoring initiation stage, the scientific support stage, the agenda-upgrading stage, and the deep governance stage. The thematic focus shifted progressively from institutional frameworks and monitoring and assessment toward science-policy interfaces, operational mechanism development, and multilateral cooperation. In the drought negotiations, China's role gradually evolved from an ordinary participant, to an active participant, a contributor, a promoter, and ultimately to a leader. Correspondingly, its matrix position shifted from "low willingness-low capacity" during COP1-COP9, to "relatively high willingness-relatively high capacity" during COP10-COP11, and then to "high willingness-high capacity" during COP12-COP16. Overall, China's strategic pathway exhibited a gradual evolutionary pattern characterized by "willingness taking the lead, capacity following suit".

Conclusions In conclusion, China should adopt measures such as "improving internal capacity building" "strengthening external risk response" and "enhancing negotiation capacity", so as to contribute a "Chinese solution" to institutional progress and international consensus-building under the drought agenda framework of the UNCCD.