China pushes to fill Trump’s void across range of U.N. activities

Chinese leader Xi Jinping skipped the United Nations General Assembly during his U.S. visit this week. That doesn’t mean Beijing is neglecting the world body.

On the contrary, it’s been deepening its influence across the U.N., an effort now made easier as U.S. President Donald Trump pulls back from the multilateral system.

China is carrying out its campaign through lower-profile agencies that set standards in some of the most controversial areas, including artificial intelligence, where a global debate is raging between advocates of a laissez-faire approach and those pushing for stronger guardrails.

Its discreet efforts to increase sway are overshadowed by the rivalry between the U.S. and China over trade, technology and security, which grabbed the headlines when Trump and Xi met in Washington this week.

But they are no less important and part of a long strategic game. As Trump withholds millions of dollars in U.S. dues and pulls out of dozens of agencies, most famously the World Health Organization, China is filling the gap.

The number of Chinese personnel in the U.N. system has jumped by a third since before the pandemic, to 1,641. Meanwhile, it’s offering Chinese software, navigation systems and cash infusions in exchange for a bigger say over the rules, pushing a slow-burn redistribution of leverage — one appointment, partnership and board agenda item at a time.

China rejects any notion that it’s mounting a takeover.

“We don’t say that we are more powerful in the U.N., we see ourselves as equals,” Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the organization, said in an interview. “But we are glad to see that people are paying more attention to China’s views and positions.”

The U.S. has historically been the largest financial contributor to the United Nations. Trump has long been a critic, and repeated his views this week, telling world leaders that the organization must stop imposing “the far-left agenda of globalist bureaucrats.”

Such views are shared in conservative circles, according to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz.

“There’s a lot of, ‘Why don’t we just walk away from this disaster of the United Nations’” he said at a defense summit this summer. “Well, if we did, somebody else would invent it. I don’t want to see U.N. Beijing.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, wave as they depart following his state visit to the U.S., at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday. | POOL / VIA REUTERS

Meanwhile, China is pushing for greater influence in areas that include global commerce via the World Trade Organization, climate change science and nuclear regulation.

At the International Atomic Energy Agency, a body long shaped by American priorities — and where jobs are the currency of national influence — diplomats say recent appointments to key nuclear posts and technical cooperation projects have strengthened Beijing’s hand.

China has commandeered key elements of the Vienna-based agency’s agenda. 

Beijing has also used the agency to turn up the diplomatic heat on Japan. Chinese envoy Li Song has demanded ongoing scrutiny of Tokyo’s release of treated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant — which the IAEA says meets international safety standards — and tighter inspections of Japan’s plutonium stockpile.

According to Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, the IAEA hiring process is based on specific skills and expertise.

“But we should not pretend or believe that international organizations are a bubble of purity and perfection in a world that is inherently competitive and tough,” he said.

China says it’s underrepresented relative to its U.N. payments and compared with the U.S. and Europe. 

At the IAEA, it has a small presence — just 39 employees among more than 1,300 full-time professionals. But its vast nuclear buildout is producing a deeper pool of scientists, engineers and regulators that will be able to compete for IAEA posts.

For Courtney Fung, a U.N. expert at Sydney’s Macquarie University, this is part of the long game.

“China pays them a scholarship, creates a competitive process to secure the brightest and best” and then sends them into the system, she said. A commonly cited example is U.N. Development Program Undersecretary General Haoliang Xu, who began his career as an intern.

China “never manipulates U.N. affairs for its own selfish interests,” according to a statement from its Foreign Ministry. It will “continue practicing genuine multilateralism” and “promote the revitalization of the U.N.’s authority.”

At the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union, Chinese officials have promoted open-source AI models and argued the U.N. body should be the forum for global regulation.

China is casting itself as a champion of the Global South, advocating for less powerful countries. That’s in contrast with the U.S., home to both Silicon Valley and the keenest advocates of a hands-off policy championed by Trump.

Although the ITU’s current secretary-general is an American, the U.S. has historically fought to keep internet governance out of the organization’s hands. That prompted the creation of ICANN, which assigns domain names and IP addresses, on U.S. soil in 1998.

Decades later, Washington doesn’t want the future of AI to be decided within the halls of the ITU, or have the debate led by China.

“There is a lot of conversation about AI governance. I am fighting back with AI freedom, but honestly, I can only block and tackle and oppose for so long,” said Waltz. “At some point, we need to be for something. What do we want it to look like?”

China’s push spans numerous other fields. The World Meteorological Organization opened its regional observation center for Asia in Beijing in 2021, fueling speculation that China might offer incentives for it to relocate its headquarters. 

“They’ve understood that these technologies cut across all sectors,” said Macquarie’s Fung. “It’s very unsexy, all this backbone stuff, but it’s strategically important.”

And the openings keep appearing for China to try to increase its soft power clout.

With Trump’s executive order withdrawing the U.S. from 31 U.N. agencies, “the United States has fast-tracked its exit,” from the international system, said Joerg Wuttke, a China expert in Washington. That “leaves a lot of space internationally and the Chinese — and other countries, frankly — are filling that space.”