For nearly a decade, the UN Security Council has been frequently paralyzed by Russia’s obstinacy over the Syrian crisis. Today, however, it is the US-China rivalry that has infected a growing array of issues, according to officials and diplomats.
As recently as 2017, an understanding between Washington and Beijing allowed the UN on three occasions — involving separate sets of economic sanctions — to project international unity in the face of the North Korean nuclear threat.
Three years later, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a ferocious competition erupt between the UN’s two main contributors, prompting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on May 1 to bemoan a “lack of leadership” during the world’s worst crisis since 1945.
Photo: Reuters
“Where we see power, we sometimes do not see the necessary leadership,” he said.
Even after more than two months of negotiations, the 15 Security Council members were unable to reach agreement on a resolution supporting a call from the UN secretary-general for a global ceasefire while the world battles the novel coronavirus.
The sole reason?
US-Chinese differences over a passing mention in the draft resolution to the WHO, with which US President Donald Trump on Friday said he planned to sever ties.
UN officials and diplomats say the US-Chinese conflict seems to be spreading, leaving them increasingly pessimistic.
“The Security Council has been frozen for 45 years between 1945 and 1990, because of the Cold War,” one ambassador said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The last thing we need is another Cold War that would freeze again the Security Council.”
“Importing bilateral disputes in the council would be a disaster,” he said.
Another ambassador added: “We really shouldn’t enter in a new Cold War, but it doesn’t look very good at the moment,” whether regarding leadership, the pandemic or US-Chinese relations, three subjects “very closely tied to each other.”
At the UN, there is a sense of a dangerous drift into new and dysfunctional territory.
“In the past, when you had disagreements among members of the council, it was compartmentalized,” said a UN official, speaking on grounds of anonymity. “So your adversary one day on a particular issue was your best ally the next day on another issue. What we see now is everything spilling over.”
“So there are camps, or there are disagreements which just spill over from one issue to another,” the official said, clearly alluding to the situation in Hong Kong, where tough new Chinese security legislation has the US and China against each other.
“The tensions between the US and China are really problematic” for the world body, meaning the Security Council is “not able to move forward on a range of things,” the official added.
Several ambassadors shared that view.
“There is a huge fracture in the global multilateral architecture right now. And it’s very serious,” EU Ambassador to the UN Olof Skoog said.
“We are witnessing a polarization in the Security Council,” said German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, whose nation is currently a non-permanent member of the council, alluding to an ever more bitter volley of tweets being exchanged by the US and Chinese missions.
At a news conference on Thursday, Guterres expressed his regret that the pandemic had not evoked a greater sense of humility from the big powers.
“If the present crisis shows something, it is our fragility. Collective fragility. When we are fragile, we should be humble. When we are humble, we should be united and in solidarity,” he said after a high-level UN meeting on how to handle the pandemic’s economic fallout, in remarks that were clearly directed to members of the Security Council.
He then made it abundantly clear that he had in mind the US and China — which as permanent council members enjoy the veto power that greatly magnifies their influence.
“I have never seen the council’s work being paralyzed by [non-permanent] members,” Guterres said.
Nauru has started selling passports to fund climate action, but is so far struggling to attract new citizens to the low-lying, largely barren island in the Pacific Ocean. Nauru, one of the world’s smallest nations, has a novel plan to fund its fight against climate change by selling so-called “Golden Passports.” Selling for US$105,000 each, Nauru plans to drum up more than US$5 million in the first year of the “climate resilience citizenship” program. Almost six months after the scheme opened in February, Nauru has so far approved just six applications — covering two families and four individuals. Despite the slow start —
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
CORRUPTION PROBE: ‘I apologize for causing concern to the people, even though I am someone insignificant,’ Kim Keon-hee said ahead of questioning by prosecutors The wife of South Korea’s ousted former president Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday was questioned by a special prosecutor as investigators expanded a probe into suspicions of stock manipulation, bribery and interference in political party nominations. The investigation into Kim Keon-hee is one of three separate special prosecutor probes launched by the government targeting the presidency of Yoon, who was removed from office in April and rearrested last month over his brief imposition of martial law on Dec. 3 last year. The incident came during a seemingly routine standoff with the opposition, who he described as “anti-state” forces abusing their legislative majority to obstruct
RSS