I was a Biden man on the UN Security Council. Please don't take over to Russia, China

In the past four years at the United Nations, the international community witnessed an astonishing trend in close cooperation between Russia and China in 1945, poses a major threat to the “rule-based order” that the US supports its design.

This increased level of cooperation presents an unprecedented dilemma for like-minded partners with the United States. It's a way to maintain existing order, warts and more when two permanent members of the UN Security Council are now working diligently to destroy it.

For many UN observers, China and Russia have now come to the common conclusion that the UN has become a tool that Washington and its allies regularly use to destabilise their administration and reduce global impact. As a result, the United Nations has become an important battlefield in the current era of “big power” competition.

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Over my two or more years as the US ambassador responsible for the UN Security Council, I have seen first hand at the UN how these two authoritarian powers have repeatedly and vigorously spread falsehood.

The UN bureaucracy is seen in the “West.” The United States and Europe continue to exploit global southern countries in “colonial” ways. The US uses unilateral sanctions to impose wills on other parts of the world, and the Western-led international financial system continues to belong globally.

By breeding these false stories, Russia and China want to persuade developing countries that the United Nations and associated mechanisms do not represent their views or values, and that a fundamental overhaul of multilateral systems is urgently necessary.

It doesn't seem to have been a warning sign. The Russian war of attacks on Ukraine in early 2022 and the robust international accusations of it have even argued that Moscow is determined to dispose of the current order, and that there is no such thing as a rule-based order.

It violated Ukraine's UN General Assembly resolutions and retreated troops from the country in opposition to repeated calls from the United Nations. Almost every day, we use inflamed rhetoric and nuclear saber ratlings at the UN Security Council to threaten and intimidate countries against war with Ukraine, illegal military cooperation with North Korea, blatant interference in democratic elections, and support for an authoritative regime that commits a horrifying attitude towards themselves.

This type of majestic Russian behavior is nothing new, but when seen in the context of a “unlimited partnership” with China, a burgeoning authoritarian superpower, the world needs to be informed seriously.

Since 2016, Beijing has been taking part in a relentless campaign to remake the United Nations with its own authoritarian image. It has been hard work to insert it into official UN documents promoting ideological and political priorities within the country, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Security Initiative.

It funds the deployment of young Chinese citizens into the UN Junior Professional Officer Program, which trains and develops future UN civil servants. Through this programme, Beijing's main goal is to mimic an extreme system that focuses solely on promoting the interests of the Communist Party of China, rather than simply developing Chinese national leaders with UN expertise.

Russia and China are working together at the United Nations to undermine the US's influence with the southern part of the world. File: Russian President Vladimir Putin will speak at a joint press conference with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko following a meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia on Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

China, which plays a long game, like Russia, is trying to underestimate the importance of human rights, individual liberties and the role of civil society in UN warrants. Instead of withdrawing from UN agencies such as UNESCO and WHO, the new administration should double its involvement in these agencies and prevent China from controlling key regions such as AI and its response to future pandemics.

At public and closed Security Council meetings, there were oral clashes with Russian and Chinese diplomats, firmly fighting over their propaganda and false narratives.

Begging the global South, Russia and China is usually a democratic instability that proves that the order based on rules is failing, and that the authoritarian model is a wave of the future.

Most countries in the Global South do not subscribe to these views, but it would be wrong to say that there is no increase in support for this view. The Biden administration's call for UN Security Council reform, and the UN Secretary-General Guterres' “agreement,” a blueprint for moving the UN forward, sought to address some of the demands of change expressed by developing countries.

However, if Russian and Chinese propaganda became the mainstream of the global Southern discourse about the United Nations, the demand for a fundamental overhaul of rules-based order could certainly be large and, as we know, could significantly weaken support for the United Nations.

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US friends also warn that the current political sector between Washington and its allies is giving Russia and China an advantage in the struggle. To effectively satisfy this evolving, competitive moment of strategic landscape, the Trump administration must abandon its anti-Yun stance and urgently deploy America's unique convening power to renew and strengthen its partnership at the United Nations.

Chinese and Russian diplomats personally acknowledge that one of the advantages of comparisons that the US has over their countries is our historical, value-based alliance. But just as important as the alliance, they cannot be one-way streets.

The US has the right to expect that partners will not work to undermine their critical security interests. States should not expect to continue voting for American policy priorities at the United Nations. It is important for each side to understand the other's expectations.

Since 2016, Beijing has been taking part in a relentless campaign to remake the United Nations with its own authoritarian image.

The United States also needs to be actively involved in the UN Press Corps. This was a religious undertake I had at UN Headquarters and confirmed that the US perspective could be factored into media reporting. This should be a priority. If we do not consistently push the American narrative away, our enemies will fill the void and define it in ways that undermine our global position and interests.

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Over the past 79 years, the United States has effectively invested in building the United Nations and the broader international system. Don't waste this enormous investment. Make sure the United Nations is tailored to its purpose and continues to meet the basic principles of the Charter. It protects human rights, saves future generations from the tragedy of war, and promotes a more just world. We should work with like-minded countries, organizations and people to survive and thrive in an undoubtedly a time of strategic competition.

There's no room for it.