Why the increase in Chinese staff at the United Nations matters
Courtney J. Fung and Shing-hon Lam
There is much interest of late in China’s growing role at the United Nations (UN). Commentators write of ‘angst about the growing Chinese [multilateral] role’ when discussing PRC UN officials and outline the need for the US to prevent Chinese control of multilateral agencies. The Trump administration charged PRC international civil servants as lacking ‘independence from the Chinese Communist Party’ and created a new special envoy for multilateral integrity to ‘[counter] malign influences of the PRC and others in the UN system’. Indeed, the Biden administration’s newly-appointed US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield reaffirmed she will ‘resist China’s efforts to overfill key UN positions with Chinese citizens.’
Such statements are not entirely unfounded. China is now the second largest funder of the UN regular and peacekeeping budgets. It has signed a memorandum of understanding regarding the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a variety of UN bodies, and senior UN officials now laud the BRI within UN agendas. China pushes to insert its vision for global governance — a ‘shared future’ — into UN policy documents. On the other hand, China is far from alone on the security council in seeking to place their own nationals in key posts or in seeking to use the organization to advance its national interests. It is therefore important to examine changes to China’s role at the organization, to ascertain whether China’s staffing presence really is increasing and what this might mean for the UN going forward.
Limited gains and structural obstacles
Our recent article in International Affairs found that, while China is making targeted gains in specific in UN specialized agencies, accounts of Chinese dominance at organization are somewhat exaggerated.
The PRC has only held 13 top postings since assuming its UN security council seat in 1971. This number is lower than every current and aspiring security council member except Russia; indeed, it is far exceeded by the United States (64), France (28) and the UK (25). This is further supported by the fact that China is yet to lead an agency with a remit directly addressing international peace and security.
However, we do find that China has made modest, targeted gains in most UN specialized agencies. Moreover, agencies headed by PRC nationals show faster increases in numbers of PRC staff members in absolute and relative terms — albeit said increases start from a very low base.
While China has been more active, the structural factors that have limited China’s presence within the UN bureaucracy show no signs of abating. Chinese-language sources (e.g. here and here) emphasize that China’s ability to increase its international civil service footprint is constrained by five factors.
First, the legacy of China as a latecomer to UN participation restricts its policy exposure and understanding of informal UN rules and working methods, all of which facilitate Western staffing dominance. Second, China’s domestic bureaucracy limits the number of qualified and motivated applicants available to compete for junior international civil service openings, restricting China’s potential pool of experienced UN operators. Third, PRC staff often face challenges in adjusting to an international civil service work culture that values teamwork, transparency and open exchange while relying heavily on English and French to frame key policy documents. Fourth, China’s comparatively limited experience leading attempts to resolve complex international peace and security issues contrasts sharply with US, British and French dominance of posts in this domain. Finally, China faces coordinated pushback in response to PRC candidates given suspicions of PRC nationals prioritizing China’s interests, with recent efforts to foil China’s bid to head the World Intellectual Property Organization being a prominent example. As such, while China has made targeted gains within the UN bureaucracy, these are unlikely to herald a major shift in the bureaucratic makeup of the organization.
The impact of targeted gains
This being said, the limited nature of China’s overall bureaucratic footprint does not exclude it from utilizing the gains it has made to its strategic advantage. Currently, China holds elected leadership positions at three specialized agencies, namely Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Telecommunication Union and the UN Industrial Development Organization.
Within the UN system China identifies executive leadership posts not only as a means to boost its control over aspects of the global governance agenda, but also to amplify its foreign policy goals and values in supporting global governance through the authority of UN offices. For example, the International Civil Aviation Organization (of which China held elected leadership from 2015 unto August 2021) and the World Health Organization implemented policies restricting Taiwan’s access to formal, multilateral coordination during COVID, with the governing bodies of these agencies legitimizing China’s ‘One China’ principle. Moreover, securing executive positions also burnishes China’s status and prestige, feeding into China’s narratives of PRC ascendancy in international politics and perceptions of its superior socio-political system.
Ultimately, even with a relatively small number of executive leaders, China has been successful in utilizing the United Nations to promote and legitimize its agenda — minimizing criticism of China’s domestic human rights record and limiting Taiwan’s international space. China is a key participant in a range of global issues by dint of choice or circumstance; and its more recent approach of active UN engagement is already producing results in its favour.
Courtney J. Fung is Associate Professor of International Relations at The University of Hong Kong and Associate Fellow at Chatham House.
Shing-hon Lam is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Their co-authored article, ‘Staffing the United Nations: China’s motivations and prospects’, was published in the July 2021 issue of International Affairs.
All views expressed are individual not institutional.
