China, which is the chair of the UN Security Council this month, organized a meeting today, on the issue of global cooperation and multilateralism. The Zoom forum entitled
““Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Upholding Multilateralism and the United Nations-Centered International System” was attended by the foreign ministers of Russia, the United States, Mexico, Vietnam, Niger, Tunisia, Kenya, Ireland, Norway, Estonia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the deputy foreign ministers of India, Britain and France. While there were many countries addressing the meeting, this was the first time that the Russian and the U.S. foreign ministers would meet in a multilateral context, and the first exchange between Wang Yi and Blinken since Anchorage.
As the chair of the meeting, Wang Yi spoke before the others. He underlined the need to commit to multilateralism and to reject all zero-sum games. “There must be dialogue and cooperation based on equality for all,” he said. He also attacked the extensive use of sanctions by nations to deal unilaterally with problems that should be dealt with in the multilateral arena. He emphasized the notion of peace through development and stressed that the UN should be especially mindful of the situation facing the developing countries.
Antony Blinken followed several speakers later and addressed the role of the United States in the creation of the UN, quoting Harry Truman several times, but not Franklin Roosevelt. Blinken said that the U.S. was committed to multilateralism and “had shown great restraint” after World War II in spite of being the most powerful country in the world. He said the system since then had been one of the most peaceful periods of the world. He said that adherence to international laws of all types was key, not only to the UN Charter, but to maritime law and rulings by courts, no doubt implying the ruling of the International Court on the South China Sea, which has never been accepted by China.
