UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres addresses the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City on September 20, 2022. Photo: AFP
The general debate of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 77) is currently under way. This is the first entire in-person meeting at the UN headquarters since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting is being held when the world is severely divided. It hence should be an opportunity for all parties to strengthen communication, bridge divergences, and join hands to cope with global challenges, while being cautious of certain countries' attempt to turn the general assembly into a tool to create division, and escalate conflicts and confrontation. In his opening remarks, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that progress made on coping with challenges is being held hostage to geopolitical tensions. "Our world is in peril - and paralyzed … No cooperation. No dialogue. No collective problem solving. But the reality is that we live in a world where the logic of cooperation and dialogue is the only path forward," he stressed. Guterres' warning is both a description of the status quo and a concern about the current situation of the UN. However, to what extent can such warning be translated into actions by some key countries remains a big question to be answered. Several media reports mentioned that this week's UNGA 77 general debate will be dominated by the struggle between the US and its allies on the one side, and Russia on the other, over the Ukraine crisis. The US and its allies are committed to launching a campaign to "isolate Russia." In addition to carry on strong condemnations against Russia, they are ganging up to pressure neutral countries. It is reported that the Russian side will discuss not to allow the US and the West to launch a hybrid war in Ukraine. Many developing countries and aid groups worry that the diplomatic conflict over Ukraine will undermine a key opportunity to address famine, the climate crisis and other issues of concern. Amid the interwoven changes and chaos of the world, the UN is also undergoing a test about profound differences. Will it let itself be kidnapped by some forces and turned into a tool for targeting specific countries, and promoting group politics and the so-called alliances of values? Or will it hold on to promoting democracy in international relations, adhering to comprehensive concepts of development and security, and uniting the vast number of countries to solve common problems via genuine multilateralism? The history of the development of the UN indicates that these two forces have always had a tug-of-war. Whether the forces of solidarity and cooperation that focus on the future of mankind can overcome the forces of division and confrontation that rest on geopolitical logic will affect UN's role and hundreds of millions of people around the world in the future. There is one thing that cannot be denied: Although the UN General Assembly general debates have been filled with lots of conflicts and confrontations, the UN remains the core of global governance nowadays and is in a key position to address a range of challenges, and the UN Security Council remains the core of the global system of collective security. It is for this very reason that the international community generally places high hopes on the UN system as a prioritized platform for pursuing a better vision of the world. Under such circumstances, how the UN can build consensus and promote unity requires courage and wisdom, and moreover, new ideas. In this process, it's significant whether the major powers choose dialogue and cooperation, or division and confrontation. It's learned from the lessons of World War I and II that the rule of "great power unanimity" has become the main operating rule of the UN mechanism. Especially in the current situation where the Russia-Ukraine conflict is escalating and humanitarian disaster is imminent, major powers should take the initiative to safeguard UN's authority and leave an "emergency channel" for diplomatic settlement of disputes through UN mechanisms, rather than instrumentalizing and ideologizing the organization and using geopolitical interests to kidnap it, making the complicated problem even more difficult to solve. This is a moral obligation, and a responsibility as well. In the statements that have been made during the meeting, representatives of many countries have mentioned "solidarity," showing that the problem has been noticed. However, there are divergences on the path to solve them. At the moment, we need to practice authentic multilateralism and work together to uphold the principles of the UN Charter. We suggest that the representatives of the participating countries carefully read the "Position Paper of the People's Republic of China For the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly," which gives a "Chinese proposal" for the current period of turbulent changes, a proposal for building common security and achieving common development.
There lies the desire to pursue an integrated and common view of security, instead of a unilateral view of security dominated by a single power, behind the strong calls at this session from developing countries to focus on famine and climate crisis while preventing the Russia-Ukraine conflict from monopolizing all the attention. We believe that the measure of whether a session of the UNGA is worthwhile should be whether the world is more fractured or less fractured afterward, and if there is more cooperation or less after the session. There could also be identification of responsibility for this.
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Ahum, you are wrong about which country is the world’s big bully.
It is not China, but the US.
The US is constantly meddling in the affairs of other countries, creating political instability in countries that refuse to be their pet-dog, and even fabricate lies as an excuse to start wars or invade countries.
They even hack their allies, I personally witnessed such a hack as an employee of a European telecom/internet provider.
At
the same time, US telecom/internet equipment manufacturers refuse
access to their source code and firmware to do serious security
inspections, while Huawei gives full acc
China isn’t a world bully! You must be Indian
The so called genocide on Uighurs (Xijiang)? Or by the media well overblown dispute over Tibetan territory? Or Arunachal Pradesh (India)? These disputes go back to the 6 and 7th century (if not further).
Western world pokes nose to something that started during the reign of well successful and mighty Tang Dynasty. The so called eastern Turks invaded China from the east and were pushed back over the border. That happened several times until the two rival sides signed economic and trade treaties which allowed Turks to stay at Chinese borders, however, Chinese never disclaimed the possession of th
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When compared to the actions of many other countries and even some actions against China itself, please state how China is being a bully?
Umm…. Surely that's the US you're thinking of? Been bullying threatening and trying to subvert an island neighbour these last sixty years? You have heard of Cuba, haven't you?
Who?
Lol.
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first , China isn't the world bully , and have beaten socalled UN army at Korea in 1950–1953 . Second , China always get the majority ballots even defamed endlessly by all west medias . last , China have the power to veto all unfavorable , by war or others like US .
I can't believe how many young people from the new generation of people raised in the USA actually believe this propaganda perpetuated by the government that USA is good and everyone else who is a potential threat to USA is bad. People these days have a very incorrect and missinformed view of the world. America is not doing peacekeeping, they are just ordering other countries about how should they live, whom should they do business with and so on and so forth. America is acting like a bully, not like a helping hand.
I'm not going to touch on which countries are or aren't “world bullies” and state a very simple fact that I don't see in any other answer;
China can veto any UN resolution so would just veto any resolution used to apply pressure to them.
All 5 permanent Security Council members can do this so the UN can't do anything against China, France, Russia, the UK or the USA because all these 5 counties can just say no.
Because for years, it has failed to force the United States to back down from its imperialist behavior.
Es muy triste leer tanta ignorancia y a pesar del alcance de la información se repite aquella que es manipulada por los medios.
The UN is useless. However, the CCP will fail due to demographic collapse and the end of globalization
“Why can't the UN pressure China to stop behaving like a world bully and stop threatening the neighbors with force?” It is because of the nature of UN who is not a world’s government. The UN’s outcome is just resolutions which ‘encourages/recommends’, and not forces its members to do something.
And even if UN were a powerful world govt then China is is one of most powerful figure of this govt so there would never been any UN’s decision/order to stop bad China’s behavior.
This is because the veto members like Russia are doing the same things.
