Xi Jinping

The UN’s Guterres, an Incumbent With Strong Backing by Europe, Is Bound to Win Another Term

• May 9, 2021

It was all over in one crucial week. Barring an unforeseen hitch, António Guterres is the clear winner of a second, five-year term as secretary-general of the United Nations, beginning on Jan.1, 2022. This was not a surprise: he had no major competition and the process moved faster than expected. A three-hour question-and-answer session …

Latin America, Secretary-General, Security Council, UN Peacekeeping, US-UN Relations

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THIS WEEK @UN

China in the Hot Seat; Goodbye Multilateralism?; Guterres’s Vision for 5 More Years

Ivana Ramirez

• May 7, 2021

China in the United Nations’ hot seat; Guterres’s vision for another five years; the future of global cooperation; who was Anne Dragon Nezeriotis? You are reading This Week @UN, summarizing the most pressing issues facing the organization. The information is gathered from UN press briefings, PassBlue reporting and other sources. Our latest UN-Scripted podcast episode …

General Assembly, Latin America, Myanmar, Secretary-General, Security Council, This Week @UN, US-UN Relations

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SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

China’s Agenda for May: Less on Myanmar, More on Tech, Peace and Security

Stéphanie Fillion

• May 5, 2021

When China last took the reins of the Security Council, in March 2020, the country was just starting to control the pandemic at home, while the virus was spreading rapidly abroad, all the way to United Nations headquarters in New York City. Yet China refused to talk about the pandemic during that stint, and …

Human Rights, Myanmar, Security Council Presidency

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WORLDVIEWS

The Vanishing Democracy in Hong Kong

Alan Doss

• December 1, 2020

Recent events in Hong Kong should alert those people who hope that economic development can lead to democratic change. A few weeks ago, the territory’s fragile democratic order took another hit when opposition members of Hong Kong’s Legislative Council resigned to protest the disqualification of four of their members, labeled by the Chinese authorities …

Asia, Governance, Human Rights, WORLDVIEWS

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UN75

At the UN: US Condemns China; France Lectures; China Plays Sage; Turkey Is Gifted

Barbara Crossette

• September 22, 2020

Donald Trump, speaking on the opening day of the United Nations’ 75th General Assembly session — the same day that the United States officially tallied a coronavirus death toll of 200,000 people — reiterated all his familiar grievances against China and added a few. He blamed the Chinese not only for spreading Covid-19 across …

General Assembly, UN75

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Strongmen to Kick Off the UN General Assembly Session in September

Stéphanie Fillion

• August 14, 2019

Donald Trump will shake hands with Emmanuel Macron, Jair Bolsonaro and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. But will Benjamin Netanyahu; Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel be there, too? The 74th opening debate of the United Nations General Assembly, which starts on Sept.17 and ends on Sept. 30; the general debate begins on Sept. 24. With most …

Climate and Environment, General Assembly, US-UN Relations

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BOOKS

Resource Wars: How Afraid Should We Be of China?

Irwin Arieff

• March 26, 2014

The United States and Japanese military held joint war games in California in February, practicing how to invade and take back an island seized by hostile forces. While they didn’t say whose forces they were worried about, the drill was one more sign of growing global fears that China’s People’s Liberation Army may soon …