As world leaders descend on New York this week, blocking traffic and frustrating local residents, expect widely divergent messages from Washington and Beijing at the UN General Assembly, deep anxiety over institutional reform and fundamental questions about the organisation’s future on its 80th anniversary.
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Despite US President Donald Trump’s globally unpopular tariffs, norm-breaking policies and destabilising pullback from the global body, Beijing has not rushed to fill the leadership vacuum – but has instead sought to project an image of cohesion and stability, said experts and former UN officials.
“With the US absenting itself, there’s more Chinese influence,” said Jeremy Chan, senior analyst with Eurasia Group. “Under Trump, the US continues to make own goals and China stands at midfield and lets the US get away with it. China benefits by doing nothing.”
With all the caveats involving the mercurial US president, analysts said they expect him to weigh in on Iran, Israel and Gaza during his scheduled address on Tuesday; play to his domestic base with attacks on UN diversity, equity and inclusion; and take credit for ending numerous conflicts as part of his bid for a Nobel Peace Prize.
“I stopped seven wars, and they were, they’re big ones too,” Trump said earlier this month.
Surprisingly, given his many attacks on multilateralism, however, Trump seems to actually like the UN relative to his deep distrust of Nato, for instance. His first cabinet appointment was that of UN ambassador, naming Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik before pulling her candidacy to safeguard a slim congressional majority.
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