55 Years at the UN: How Beijing Uses the Posts It Holds to Advance Its Policy Goals

October 25 will mark 55 years since the People's Republic of China took China's seat at the United Nations. On that date in 1971, General Assembly Resolution 2758 moved the seat from the Republic of China government in Taipei to Beijing. Beijing still cites the resolution in support of its claim to Taiwan.

Chinese state media has tied the anniversary to Xi Jinping's Global Governance Initiative, which calls for giving China and developing countries a larger say in international institutions. At UN meetings in September, Vice President Han Zheng presented it as proof of China's commitment to the UN's central role and called the anniversary a new starting point for China-UN cooperation. China also plans to hold a global governance forum this autumn in the Xiong'an New Area in Hebei. The piece argues that Beijing's conduct in the posts it already holds shows how it would use more influence.

In 2020, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Chinese nationals led four UN specialized agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the UN Industrial Development Organization. Beijing's candidate also ran for the World Intellectual Property Organization that year but lost to Singapore's Daren Tang. Qu Dongyu won 168 of 182 votes for a second term as FAO director-general, which runs through July 2027. As of April 2026, another Chinese national, Li Junhua, headed the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The article says officials in these posts have served Beijing's interests. Wu Hongbo, who led that department from 2012 to 2017, blocked Uyghur activist Dolkun Isa from attending a UN forum. According to testimony before the commission, he later told Chinese state television that officials must strongly defend the motherland's interests. UN conduct standards say international civil servants should not seek or accept instructions from any government.

Taiwan has been a frequent target. Under Secretary-General Fang Liu, ICAO stopped inviting Taiwan to its assembly. In January 2020, as COVID-19 spread, the agency blocked Twitter users who criticized Taiwan's exclusion, including congressional staffers. The State Department called this outrageous, unacceptable and not befitting a UN organization.

At the ITU, Secretary-General Houlin Zhao aligned the agency with Beijing's commercial agenda. During the 2017 Belt and Road Forum, the ITU signed an agreement with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to help participating countries build communications networks. In 2019, amid U.S. security concerns about Huawei, Zhao said the agency had come across no evidence of security concerns about the equipment.

Outside the UN, Chinese nationals have held international posts while keeping government roles. Meng Hongwei stayed China's vice minister of public security while serving as Interpol president. In 2018 he disappeared during a trip to China, and Beijing announced he was under investigation for bribery. Interpol accepted his resignation halfway through his four-year term. In November 2025, Interpol elected Wang Yong as vice president for Asia; he also serves as political commissar of the Ministry of Public Security's International Cooperation Bureau.

Votes matter too. In August 2022, the UN human rights office reported that abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity. On October 6, the Human Rights Council voted 19 to 17, with 11 abstentions, against even debating the report.

At the World Health Organization, Taiwan attended the World Health Assembly as an observer from 2009 to 2016, until China blocked its participation after Taiwan's 2016 presidential election. In May 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had every legal power and precedent to invite Taiwan but declined under pressure from China. President Trump's May 18, 2020 letter to Tedros cited the WHO's alarming lack of independence from China. On May 29 he announced the U.S. would end its relationship, noting China paid $40 million annually against roughly $450 million from the U.S. Executive Order 14155, issued in January 2025, made a similar point about China's contributions.

China is assessed 20 percent of the UN regular budget, second to the U.S. at 22 percent. In 2024 it was the second-to-last country to pay in full, ahead only of North Korea. In July 2026 a UN official reported China owed $428 million on the regular budget and $65 million for peacekeeping. It paid its regular-budget dues in full in early September. The piece, which is critical of Beijing, concludes that the initiative's call to end dominance by a few countries may mean replacing it with China's own.