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China Hosts a Thanksgiving Trip for UN Envoys

China Hosts a Thanksgiving Trip for UN Envoys

(Bloomberg) -- While most United Nations diplomats will spend a long Thanksgiving weekend in New York, some top Security Council envoys are going to China, part of Beijing’s latest efforts to flex its muscles as the U.S. steps back from international institutions.

Diplomats more accustomed to taking field trips to conflict zones such as Myanmar or the Democratic Republic of Congo will visit the sprawling port city of Guangzhou and Shenzhen during a weekend trip attended by top ambassadors from countries including the U.K. and the Netherlands. China is hosting the visit as it serves a one-month rotating presidency of the Security Council, where it is one of five permanent members.

“It’s quite a striking gesture by the Chinese,” said Richard Gowan, a senior fellow at the United Nations University’s Center for Policy Research. “They want to show they’re on par with the Americans.”

China is using the moment to emphasize “multilateralism” at a time when much of the international community is frustrated with the Trump administration’s “America First” strategy, citing the U.S. withdrawal from agreements such as the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate change accord.

But the trip also comes as China takes a broader leadership role at the UN. The country has ramped up its involvement in peacekeeping missions and is now the single biggest donor to such efforts after the U.S. The itinerary for the envoys’ China visit includes a tour of a peacekeeping training facility in Beijing.

The diplomatic maneuvering coincides with a more assertive international posture. China is aggressively pressing its claims in the South China Sea and expanding its first overseas military facility, in Djibouti, and continuing to pursue its Belt and Road Initiative.

China Hosts a Thanksgiving Trip for UN Envoys

China formally began its one-month presidency of the Security Council earlier this month with a discussion on “strengthening multilateralism.” At the opening debate, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley pushed back on the apparent slight, emphasizing the historic U.S. role as the leading funder of UN operations and said the value of multilateralism has to be determined based on its results. The U.S. provides about 28 percent of the UN’s $6.7 billion peacekeeping budget, compared to about 10 percent for China.

“We do have a legitimate expectation to get a return on our investment for multilateralism,” Haley said Nov. 9. “We do not regard this work as charity. It is our contribution to the advancement of peace, security, and human rights in every region of the world.”

Human Rights

While China often uses its leadership role at the UN to emphasize economic development -- the UN’s General Assembly held a forum this year in honor of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative -- it also often opposes the body’s emphasis on human rights.

China isn’t the first to give Security Council diplomats a chance to escape New York for someplace other than a conflict zone. Not long after taking her post, Haley brought Security Council diplomats to the White House for lunch with President Donald Trump, a move seen as getting the president more invested directly in the U.S. role at the global body.

This latest trip has drawn scrutiny from some human rights organizations, who accuse China of detaining 1 million Uighur Muslims in the western Xinjiang region, where they are allegedly being forced to undergo re-education programs, a claim China has vehemently denied.

“It looks very sinister from our perspective, especially if ambassadors just avoid mentioning the elephant in the room, which is the detaining of Chinese Muslims in what are essentially centers that sound a lot like concentration camps,” said Louis Charbonneau, the United Nations director at Human Rights Watch. “We hope Security Council members will hold China’s feet to the fire.”

To contact the reporter on this story: David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Mike Dorning

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.