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at last Four years of the United Nations The international community has witnessed a shocking trend of closer cooperation between Russia and China, posing a major threat to the US’s “rule-based orders”, which helped design in 1945.
This level of increased and updated collaboration has brought unprecedented dilemma to the United States and like-minded partners: how to maintain existing order, warts, and when two permanent members of the UN Security Council are now fanatically subverting it to subvert it.
For many UN observers, China Now, Russia has come to the common conclusion that the United Nations has become a tool frequently used by Washington and its allies to undermine its regime and reduce its global influence. Therefore, the United Nations has become a key battlefield in the current era of competition for “big powers”.
For more than two years as the United Nations Ambassador for the United Nations Security Council affairs, I have witnessed first-hand how these two authoritarian powers recur and vibrant to spread false powers:
Ambassador Robert Wood, U.S. Ambassador for Disarmament, attended a press conference held in the United Nations on April 19, 2018 in Geneva, Switzerland. (Reuters/Denis Borib Cabin)
- The bureaucracy of the United Nations is seen as the “Western”.
- The United States and Europe continue to use countries in the global southern countries in a “colonial” way;
- The United States uses unilateral sanctions to impose its will on the rest of the world;
- And the international financial system led by the West continues to conquer global holders.
By spreading these wrong storylines, Russia and China hope to convince The United Nations and its related mechanisms do not represent developing countries whose views and values are urgently needed to make basic overhaul of the multilateral system.
There seems to be no warning sign. Since Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine in early 2022 and its condemnation of international might, Moscow has decided to deal with the current order, even claiming that there are no rules-based orders or something like that.
It blatantly violated the UN General Assembly resolution on Ukraine and ignored the repeated calls from UN member states to withdraw their forces from the country. It uses rhetoric and nuclear weapons inflamed in the UN Security Council almost daily to threaten and intimidate countries that oppose its war against Ukraine, its illegal military cooperation with North Korea, its blatant intervention in democratic elections and blatant intervention in authoritarian regimes and terrorist abuses on its own people.
Although this threatening Russian behavior is nothing new, when it comes to an emerging autocratic superpower in the context of a “unlimited partnership” with China, it is a new and authoritarian superpower, and the world needs to pay serious attention.
Since 2016, Beijing has been moving relentlessly to reshape the United Nations with its own authoritarian image. It is enthusiastic about inserting official UN documents to promote its own domestic ideological and political priorities such as the Belt and Roads Program and the Global Security Program.
It prioritizes the placement of young nationals in the United Nations Junior Professional Official Program, which trains and develops future UN civil servants. Through the plan, Beijing’s main goal is not only to develop Chinese national cadres with non-expert knowledge, but to sow with a dressed multilateral system, focusing only on promoting the interests of the Communist Party of China.
Russia and China have been working together at the United Nations to undermine the U.S. influence with the global South. Document: Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held talks at the Grand Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Over the long race, China, like Russia, also tried to devalue human rights, the importance of personal freedom, and the massive written written by civil society at the United Nations, quietly gradually eliminated international standards and norms, which the United States and the vast majority of UN member states wanted to retain. Instead of withdrawing from UN agencies such as UNESCO and WHO, the new government should double its participation in these agencies to prevent China from leading key areas such as AI and response to future pandemics.
During the open and closed Security Council meeting, I had many verbal conflicts with Russian and Chinese diplomats to firmly question their propaganda and false narratives that, if repeated frequently, begin to resonate with states that are not completely familiar with the history and facts associated with a given issue.
To attract the global South, Russia and China often point out economic inequality, the war in Gaza allegedly unfairly restricted to accessing leading technology, they claim that democracies as proof of instability in rule-based orders is a failure, and that the authoritarian model is a wave of the future.
Although most countries in the southern countries around the world disagree with these views, it is incorrect to say that there is no increasing support for this idea. The Biden administration calls for UN Security Council reform, and UN Secretary-General Guterres’s “future contract” (the future contract) attempts to address some of the requirements for changes expressed by developing countries.
But if Russia and China propaganda become mainstream in the United Nations global southern discourse, the requirement for a basic overhaul of rule-based orders will certainly become greater and can seriously undermine our support for the United Nations.
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Friends of the United States also warned that current political savvy in Washington and between Washington and its allies had made Russia and China the upper hand in this struggle. To effectively meet this evolving competitive strategic pattern moment, the Trump administration needs to abandon its opposition posture and urgently deploy the unique convening force of the United States to renew and strengthen the United Nations coalition.
Chinese and Russian diplomats privately acknowledge that the comparative advantage the United States has over its country is our historic, values-based alliance. But as important as alliances, they cannot be one-way streets.
The United States has the right to expect partners not to undermine their critical security interests. The state should not expect to continually vote against U.S. policy priorities without being held accountable. It is important that both parties understand each other’s expectations.
Since 2016, Beijing has been moving relentlessly to reshape the United Nations with its own authoritarian image.
The United States also needs to actively participate in the UN press. This is something I piously promised at the UN Headquarters to make sure that I do my best to incorporate American perspectives into the media reports. This has to be a priority. If we do not consistently push American narratives, our opponents will fill in the gaps and define the narrative in ways that undermine our global status and interests.
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Over the past 79 years, the United States has made substantial investments in the establishment of the United Nations and the broader international system. Let’s not waste this huge investment. Let us work hard to achieve our goals and ensure that it continues to comply with the fundamental principles of its Charter – to protect human rights, to protect future generations from the scourge of war, and to promote a more just world. We should cooperate with like-minded countries, organizations and people to help them survive and thrive, which will undoubtedly be an era of fierce strategic competition.
We don’t have time to give up.
