The EconomistDecember 7th 2019 591D
espite itsveto-wielding power in the
United Nations, China has long been
reluctant to stick its neck out. It has been
20 years since it last stood alone in exercis-
ing that right. But in the un’s backrooms,
the country’s diplomats are showing great-
er willingness to flex muscle, and their
Western counterparts to fight back. Not
since the cold war has the organisation be-
come such a battleground for competing
visions of the international order.
A struggle in October over China’s mass
internment of Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic
minority, suggests how intense the fight
has become. It involved Britain taking an
unusual leading role in condemning Chi-
na’s human-rights record. The British rep-
resentative at the un, Karen Pierce, issued a
statement, signed by 22 other countries in-
cluding America, calling for unfettered un
access to the prison camps in China’s far-
western region of Xinjiang. A diplomatic
brawl ensued. Chinese diplomats persuad-
ed dozens of authoritarian countries, in-
cluding mostly Muslim ones in the Middle
East, to sign a counter-statement praisingChina’s actions in Xinjiang as an enlight-
ened effort to fight terrorism and eradicate
religious extremism.
There were threats and reprisals, too.
Chinese diplomats are said to have told
Austrian counterparts that if their country
were to sign Britain’s statement, the Austri-
an government would not get land it want-
ed for a new embassy in Beijing. The Austri-
ans signed anyway. Chinese officials
cancelled a bilateral event in Beijing with
Albania, another of the signatories. “A lot of
countries came under a lot of pressure to-
day,” tweeted Jonathan Allen, Britain’s dep-
uty ambassador to the un, on the day of his
country’s statement. “But we must stand
up for our values and for human rights.”
China’s efforts span a broad range of un
activity, from human rights to matters re-
lating to economic development. They ap-pear to have two main aims. One is to create
a safe space for the Chinese Communist
Party by ensuring that other countries do
not criticise its rule. The country has long
bristled at any such “interference”. Its offi-
cials are now becoming tougher in their re-
sponse. China’s other objective is to inject
wording into undocuments that echoes
the language of the country’s leader, Xi
Jinping. China is trying to “make Chinese
policies unpolicies,” says a diplomat on
the unSecurity Council.
China senses that President Donald
Trump’s aversion to multilateral institu-
tions such as the unhas given it more room
to manoeuvre in them. Since Mr Xi took of-
fice in 2012 the country has dramatically in-
creased its spending at the un. It is now the
second-largest contributor, after America,
to both the general budget and the peace-
keeping one. It has also secured leading
roles for its diplomats in several unbodies,
including the Rome-based Food and Agri-
culture Organisation (beating a candidate
backed by America, to many people’s sur-
prise). Next year the country will join the
three-member Board of Auditors, which
keeps an eye on the un’s accounts.
The senior jobs being taken by China’s
diplomats are mostly boring ones in insti-
tutions that few countries care much
about. But each post gives China control of
tiny levers of bureaucratic power as well as
the ability to dispense favours. “Each one
of these slots has influence with somebody
somewhere,” says a European diplomat.China and the United NationsA new battleground
NEW YORK
China’s undiplomats use threats and blandishments to promote their worldviewChina
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