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UN 70th Anniversary and China’s Participation


Zhang Yi Ⅰ. Significance and Historical Role of UN 70 years ago, the establishment of the United Nations (UN) was officially proclaimed. As known to all, UN was built on the ruins after World War II and it was the result of the victory of the world’s anti-Fascist war. After experiencing two world wars within 20 years and paying the price of tens of millions of people’s life, people at that time learned from mistakes and made the deliberate planning to “pretext offspring from suffering the untold sorrow of wars”, hence the establishment of UN. UN laid the basic pattern of contemporary international order. As the incontestable fundamental character of UN, the Charter of the United Nations, just like the “Peace of Westphalia”, was another epoch-making international legal instrument in the annals of international relations. The “Peace of Westphalia” was deemed to establish the principle of national sovereignty, while the Charter of the United Nations, on the basis of the “Peace of Westphalia”, set up a series of new principles, such as the equal rights of large and small countries, peaceful coexistence, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and peaceful settlement of disputes, which not only greatly enriched the connotation and extension of modern international relations, but also was universally accepted and became the fundamental principles guiding relations between countries. Meanwhile, the Charter of the United Nations also prescribed the security-guarantee mechanisms of the rule of “great power unanimity” and collective security, and ensured the implementation of these new rules, thus becoming an important pillar supporting world peace and security. These principles and mechanisms proved to be still of indelible strong vitality even today, and as long as they were enforced, world peace and security would be maintained. Otherwise, the peace and security of the world will be threatened. We can say that the Charter of the United Nations was the top-level design of modern international order, as well as the abandoning of jungle law and gun politics, which was of significant and far-reaching influence. Ⅱ. Role of UN Over the past 70 years, the job of UN advanced side by side in three domains, namely maintaining peace and security, promoting social and economic development, as well as protecting human rights, and has made great achievements. Thanks to the efforts of UN, the new world war was prevented and people all over the world enjoyed an overall peace of 70 years. UN intervened and mediated conflicts and disputes, conducted peace-keeping operations, and promoted the process of arms control and disarmament. In the aspect of impelling social and economic development, UN invested 80 percent of its resources into the development promoting, successively formulated four ten-year planning, the Millennium Development Goals, and United Nations sustainable development objectives, and persistently conducted tens of thousands of development assistance projects in developing countries. In the aspect of human rights protection, UN approved and enacted more than 80 declarations, treaties and conventions, which promoted and popularized the concept of human rights. In addition, UN also worked to provide humanitarian assistance and constructing an international legal system, as well as successfully concluded the process of decolonization for the first time in history. With 70 years’ development, the number of UN member states surged from 51 to 193, and the UN system has developed into a large family boasting 34 specialized or related institutions, and a multilateral system with UN as the core has formed. Today, UN is an inter-governmental organization with the highest degree of representation, universality and authority, and simultaneously playing the roles of adjudicator of international legality, disseminator of advanced ideas, provider of international public goods, barometer of the international political environment. At the same time, UN also shouldered a range of functions such as international negotiations, international rule-making, international cooperation and multilateral diplomacy, hence the abundance of documents and meetings of UN. Meanwhile, UN also opened a new era of multiple-participation in dealing with the affairs of global governance. In this era, besides governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, corporations and media all vied in participating in the process of global agenda setting. The Article 71 of Chapter Ten of the UN Charter, in particular, stipulated that Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) “shall hold a conference or consultation with non-governmental organizations over issues within the scope of its terms of reference”, which greatly promoted the full participation of non-governmental organizations in UN affairs and has thereafter become a distinctive feature in the development process of UN. So far, UN ECOSOC has granted consultative status to 4360 non-governmental organizations, and the United Nations Department of Public Information has established working contacts with more than 1300 non-governmental organizations. The specialized agencies of UN also set up different levels of links with non-governmental organizations. Via various forms and channels, such as conference consultation, report recommendations, cooperation, these non-governmental organizations realized multi-dimensional participation in UN affairs, and at the same time influencing the various aspects of UN, such as the directions of UN concepts, agenda setting, decision-making, resource allocation and project implementation. However, a mixed reputation always accompanied UN. On the one hand, UN won a great deal of praise and honor. For instance, UN institutions and staff were awarded the Nobel Prize for 11 times. On the other hand, UN often made people disappointed and was blamed due to its rigid decision-making mechanism, hardness to reach a consensus, inadequate resources and limited mandate. As such, Dag Hammarskjold, the second Secretary General of the United Nations said that “UN cannot bring people into the happy heaven as the optimist expects. however, it can help people refrain from falling into the hell”. Ⅲ. UN Diplomacy of China China was one of the four charter countries in the United Nations Constitution Drafting Meeting in San Francisco, one of the founding members of UN, as well as the first country to sign the UN Charter. In addition, the renowned Chinese architect Liang Sicheng participated in the designing of the United Nations House. Since resuming the lawful seat in UN in 1971, China’s participation in UN affairs gradually extended-China not only proposed theories like the “the differentiation of three worlds”, but also accepted the United Nations development assistance, participated in United Nations peacekeeping operations, expanded diplomatic relations via the platform of UN. China is the staunch supporter, builder and practitioner of multilateralism. Currently, as the sixth largest contributor of the expenses of the United Nations and the largest peacekeeping contingent contributor in permanent members of the UN Security Council, China has fully participated in the work of various United Nations bodies and agencies. In September 2015, when attending the Summit Series events commemorating the 70th anniversary of UN, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged all countries to enhance cooperation to jointly build a community of common destiny for all mankind and presented a “Zun of Peace” (The “Zun of Peace” is modeled after “Zun”, a bronze ritual object used in ancient China. “Zun” means reverence in Chinese and this bronze ritual object is highly important in traditional Chinese culture) as a gift to the United Nations. President Xi Jinping pledged to set aside one billion US dollars for the establishment of China-UN Peace and Development Fund and set up the Assistance Fund for South-South Cooperation with a primary allocation of 2 billion US dollars. Xi also announced that China will take part in the UN mechanism for the use of emergency standby capacities, organize formed units of standing peacekeeping force and an 8000 people standby force for peacekeeping, thus opening a new chapter in the relationship between China and UN. Ⅳ. Participation of Chinese Civil Society in UN Affairs Since the reform and opening up of China, a series of non-governmental organizations were restored or established and they gradually emerged on the stages of domestic development and foreign exchange. Under this historic background, for promoting the participation of Chinese civil society in UN affairs, the UN Association of China (UNA-China) was resumed on July 17, 1985. At the end of September 1985, the delegation of UNA-China, headed by Bi Jilong, former UN Under-Secretary-General and the then President of UNA-China, attended the 30th Congress of World Federation of United Nations Association (WFUNA) in Geneva. At the beginning of the Congress, the President of WFUNA announced the restoration of legal status of China in WFUNA and the decision was warmly welcomed by WFUNA and the UN associations of all countries. During the Congress, the delegation of UNA-China actively introduced the position of China on major international issues at that time and contacted with the UN associations of all countries. It was worth noting that UNA-China, in its first time attending the Congress of WFUNA since the restoration of its status in WFUNA, was elected member of the Executive Board of WFUNA by a handsome majority. This is a remarkable breakthrough of people-to-people diplomacy of China after the reform and opening up, which opened the process of participation of Chinese civil society in UN affairs, and improved the status and influence of China in the domain of international non-governmental organizations. Since then, under the framework of WFUNA, UNA-China actively developed bilateral cooperation with UN associations of all countries so as to promote friendship and understanding. Meanwhile, UNA-China strove to conduct research and publicity on UN in China and successively published a series of publications, such as Speeches of Chinese Delegation on Related Conferences of UN and Know about UN. In 2000, UNA-China was granted consultative status by UN ECOSOC, becoming the third institution in mainland of China to obtain this status and the first non-governmental organization in mainland of China to gain general consultative status, thus opening new frontiers for the participation of UNA-China in UN affairs. In May 2000, the delegation of UNA-China attended the UN Millennium Forum for NGOs in New York. Also 2000, UNA-China was entitled associate member status of the United Nations Department of Public Information and successfully applied to enter the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in consultative relationship with the United Nations. Thereafter, UNA-China took part in a series of UN conferences, such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (later replaced by United Nations Human Rights Council), the Information Technology Summit and the Summit on Sustainable Development, participated in the discussion of various topics and expressed the ideas of UNA-China. In 2008, before the opening of the general assembly at its sixty-third session of UN, UNA-China published The United Nations and A Harmonious World. This book analyzed and summarized the job of UN and its related topics such as security, development and human rights, which opened the third phase of the participation of UNA-China in UN affairs-the phase of influencing the agenda setting of UN. In 2012 and 2013, UNA-China and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) jointly conducted in China the national advisory program on the post-2015 development agenda, in which a series of forums involved by Chinese non-governmental organizations, government bodies, UN agencies and academia were held, and the outcome of these conferences reflecting the ideas of Chinese civil society was compiled into formal reports and posted on the website of UN. In October 2015, the book UN in Its 70 Years: Achievements and Challenges compiled by UNA-China was published. The book collected the articles of 43 top Chinese researchers on UN issues and covered 39 UN-related topics. This book elaborated the views of China, gave out the sound of China, contributed Chinese wisdom and made proposals from the perspective of China. It not only presented the position of Chinese civil society of firmly supporting UN and multilateralism, but also had a positive impact on the future development of UN. In fact, UNA-China was only a representative of the non-governmental organizations of China and the development of UNA-China was only a case of the growth of the Chinese civil society. However, to a large extent, the growth of UNA-China represented the development process of the participation of Chinese non-governmental organizations in UN affairs, in which they followed the incremental path from beginner and follower to participant and contributor, then to erector and leader. Encouragingly, according to the statistics of UN, currently 51 Chinese non-governmental organizations were granted consultative status by UN ECOSOC. This progress is bound to further promote and expand the depth and scope of Chinese non-governmental organizations in participating in UN affairs. It can be predicted that with the sustained development, improvement of comprehensive strength, and extension of global interests of China, the relations between China and UN will form a new pattern of “UN needs China more than ever before and vice versa”. On the one hand, the development of a strong United Nations and multilateralism call for the all-round participation and support of the government and civil society of China. On the other hand, via the platform of UN, the government and civil society of China will provide more public goods to the world and make greater contribution to the building of a better world. (Zhang Yi, Deputy Division Chief of the UN Association of China)