East-West Question | Zhang Guihong: How to understand the significance and enlightenment of China's restoration of its legal seat in the United Nations?

(Essential questions) Zhang Guihong: How do you understand the significance and enlightenment of China's restoration of its legal seat in the United Nations?

　　China news agency, Beijing, October 24 -

　　Author Zhang Guihong, Professor of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University, Director of the Research Center for the United Nations and International Organizations

　　October 25th marks the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations.

The significance and enlightenment of China's return to the United Nations can be understood from three perspectives: China, the United Nations and the world.

　　After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs Zhou Enlai called the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Chairman of the General Assembly on behalf of the Chinese government and formally requested the government of the People’s Republic of China to exercise China’s representation in the United Nations.

At that time, the world had entered the Cold War era of confrontation between the East and the West. The United States adopted a hostile policy towards China, using procedural means such as "delayed discussions" and "important issues" to obstruct it.

China has been engaged in diplomatic efforts and political struggles for 22 years to fight for its legal rights in the United Nations.

Until October 25, 1971, the 26th General Assembly passed Resolution 2758, recognizing that the representative of the People’s Republic of China is the only legal representative of China in the United Nations.

Data map: The opening scene of the 72nd United Nations General Assembly.

Photo by China News Agency reporter Ma Delin

　　Returning to the United Nations is of great political, diplomatic and strategic significance to China.

Politically, it confirmed China's legal status in the United Nations; diplomatically, it opened China's true multilateral diplomacy; strategically, it marked the beginning of China's role as a great power.

For half a century, China has actively participated in and supported UN affairs and has become a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, a defender of international order, and a provider of public goods.

In the context of increasingly prominent global issues and challenges, intensified competition and confrontation between major powers, and changes in the international system and international order, China needs to strengthen cooperation with the United Nations, defend true multilateralism, and inject new impetus into world peace and development. Provide stability and certainty to the international community.

　　For the United Nations, China's restoration of its legal seat in the United Nations is a landmark event.

Only a representative of the People’s Republic of China, who can truly represent the whole of China, can truly represent developing countries, and own one-fifth of the world’s population, can attend the UN General Assembly and exercise the powers of permanent members of the UN Security Council. And authority.

　　Since then, the political ecology of the United Nations has changed.

Developing countries have become an important political force in the United Nations, pushing the United Nations to make major achievements in conducting North-South dialogue and South-South cooperation, promoting the establishment of a new international political and economic order, and strengthening assistance to underdeveloped countries.

In the future, the United Nations will remain the main platform and mechanism for the coordination of major powers, the protection of rights and interests of small and medium-sized countries, and the joint response of member states to global challenges.

The role of the United Nations is inseparable from the cooperation of member states, especially the support of major powers.

As a permanent member of the Security Council and the largest developing country, China’s participation in and support for the United Nations is of even more unique and important significance.

　　For the world, China's restoration of its legal seat in the United Nations is of positive and progressive significance.

The United Nations has become a major window for the world to understand China, and China has also entered the world through the United Nations.

The world has opened its door to China, and more and more countries, including Western developed countries, have established diplomatic relations with China.

Returning to the United Nations created a favorable external environment and conditions for China's subsequent opening up.

In the early 1980s, the United Nations established an organization in China to introduce funds, technologies, talents, and projects from many countries, especially developed countries, to China to help and support China's reform, opening up, and modernization.

Data map: container terminal.

Photo by Zhang Yin

　　China's achievements in the past half a century cannot be separated from exchanges, cooperation and integration with the world.

Today, China is more willing and able to make greater contributions to world peace and development.

Chinese concepts and initiatives such as a community with a shared future for mankind, a new type of international relations, a community with a shared future for global development, the “Belt and Road”, global development, interconnection, and mutual consultation, joint contribution and sharing have provided public products for world development.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the New Development Bank of the BRICS, the China-United Nations Peace and Development Fund, the School of South-South Cooperation and Development of Peking University, the International Research Center for Sustainable Development, and other international organizations promoted and led by China The institution provides a platform and mechanism for international cooperation.

In the future, the United Nations will continue to be the bridge between China and the world's destiny, and it is also the main channel for China to contribute to world peace and development.

　　Fifty years ago, China's restoration of its legal seat in the United Nations was a turning point for China, the United Nations, and the world from confrontation to cooperation, from isolation to opening, and from isolation to integration.

Fifty years later, China, the United Nations, and the world are all standing at a new crossroads. It is also a new starting point for cooperating to meet various challenges and jointly build a better future.

(over)

About the Author:

　　Zhang Guihong was born in Shengzhou, Zhejiang in 1965.

He is currently the director, professor and doctoral supervisor of the United Nations and International Organizations Research Center of the Institute of International Studies of Fudan University.

Concurrently serving as executive director of the United Nations Association of China, director of the Shanghai Institute of International Relations, director of the Shanghai Institute of International Strategic Issues, vice president and secretary-general of the Shanghai United Nations Research Association, member of the Expert Committee of the International Organization Talent Training and Transportation Work (Shanghai) University Alliance, and a national university Judge of the International Elite Talent Competition.

He has presided over a number of scientific research projects of the Ministry of Education and the National Social Science Fund, served as the chief expert of the Marxist theoretical research and construction project (second) and the chief expert of the major research project of the Ministry of Education. "Strategy", "The United Nations is stronger and the world is better", etc.