China | A new battleground

In the UN, China uses threats and cajolery to promote its worldview

Some countries are pushing back

|NEW YORK

DESPITE ITS veto-wielding power in the United Nations, China has long been reluctant to stick its neck out. It has been 20 years since it last stood alone in exercising that right. But in the UN’s backrooms, the country’s diplomats are showing greater willingness to flex muscle, and their Western counterparts to fight back. Not since the cold war has the organisation become such a battleground for competing visions of the international order.

This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “A new battleground”

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