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| As the United Nations turns 75 years old, the world order it established has never been under greater strain. On “The Economist Asks” podcast, Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, explains how—and why—international cooperation needs to be fixed. 00:31 - Mr Guterres, the UN turns 75 at a moment of multiple crises and new challenges. You’ve said yourself that these are “dark days”. How would you define the biggest challenges? 01:51 - If we take your first point that they look at the relationship between three major powers is dysfunctional. This is hardly new for the United Nations. What makes this different from… if you take the broad sweep of 75 years of the United Nations. How has this changed? 02:57 - How much more difficult is it made by the fact that America has stepped back to some extent from the world? We already saw this under President Obama “nation building at home”, but now we see this even more with Donald Trump, who is, for example, pulling America out of the the World Health Organisation. Can the UN function properly engaged America? 03:41 - But you are very careful in how you treat President Donald Trump. For example, you may be critical of American policy. You've never criticised him by name. Is that a deliberate strategy? 04:11 - And what about the other major powers? First of all, China, you've been criticised for not speaking up loudly enough on human rights, for example, with China. How how do you handle this question with China having a very different view of human rights 05:04 - And let's not forget Russia. it's asserting itself more or more. And its vetoing many U.N. Security Council resolutions. How do you how do you handle the somewhat disruptive behaviour of Russia and how do you get towards a Security Council that can actually agree on things? 06:04 - Russia has brazenly grabbed a piece of Ukraine. China has occupied disputed territories in the South China Sea. These are exactly the kind of areas where we would expect the Security Council to be active. Has it become too slow and is it not being challenged enough to do the job it's there to do? 07:38 - I suppose I wondered whether, in your view, the UN was pivoting towards judging itself by its successes in terms of humanitarian relief, refugee crises and the other things that it does in that sphere. World Health Organisation, et cetera. And less about security 09:10 - Could I talk about the relationship between China and Russia, which seems in some ways to restored a kind of character that harks back to the Cold War in many respects. And I'm wondering what you think the implications of that are. You are diplomatically saying It's obviously good if you get more cooperation between the major players, but in some ways, it's not so good if two of the major world powers who have anti-democratic views or leanings are buddying up together 10:32 - Can I turn to the future of the U.N. here we are, 75. The institutions are really quite long in the tooth. They should they should rightly have some reform to modernise them. But is reform impossible, given these divisions at the top? 11:43 - Are you hearing things in this great exercise that to some some extent surprise you and make you think that the U.N. needs to change course in some ways? 12:16 - again, back to the grand sweep of history, what do you see the next period of the UN heralding? We've got to. Seventy five years. Take us forward to 100 years Further reading: See all of The Economist’s podcasts here: https://econ.st/3g58fak Read our full special report about the United Nations here: https://econ.st/2ZfAUlz America and China’s rivalry has become outright hostility during the pandemic: https://econ.st/2Nz9Aci Read more about how world leaders ignore China’s human rights abuses: https://econ.st/3g051Uz Listen to an episode of our podcast “Checks and Balance”: is America right to surrender global leadership? https://econ.st/2B455UN |
The Economist offers authoritative insight and opinion on international news, politics, business, finance, science, technology and the connections between them.
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riitaalin
2020-07-19 at 19:38 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Clown Show ?
Smelly Ass
2020-07-20 at 12:52 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Get rid of it. We dont want anything to do with it.
Chris K
2020-07-22 at 20:05 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
The UN also has countries that are undergoing ethnic genocide and cleansing on their Human Rights council. How effective can they be?
Yi Han
2020-07-25 at 15:55 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
As long as your not white, you are not right. Isn’t it? Whether what happen is not important, as long as Fox News as so
dekaaizer
2020-07-31 at 11:33 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Which country?
Serious Cook
2020-07-23 at 02:38 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
The UN is dead! It should be renamed United Cowardly Nations.
Moin ud-din
2020-07-23 at 23:04 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
I think it should rather be named United Puppets Nations.
LESLEY LEE
2020-07-25 at 01:32 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
My country has a quote
Small and small country have wars,UN comes in, war is solved
Big and small country have wars,UN comes in,the small country is solved
Big and big country have wars,UN comes in,UN IS SOLVED
Moin ud-din
2020-07-23 at 23:00 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
I think you guys are forgetting Indian power over UN to as they have been oppressing's and ignoring human rights since there independence, take Kashmir as an example and UN have not taken any solid action at all what are you guys doing your reason of creation is at steak.
Codezzila Lab
2020-07-25 at 07:31 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
UN looks disrupted and looks like their doing nothing on geo territorial issue
ahmed abdulahi omar
2020-07-25 at 08:07 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
There's no globalization any more
Pardeep Tandon
2020-07-25 at 10:53 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Make UN Truly democratic by giving each country voting rights proportionate to the number of human beings the country represents
FIGHTFANNERD9 KPOP is Trash & Twice is the worst
2020-07-25 at 11:59 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
why did the UN not stop America from going into the middle east ?
jen
2020-07-25 at 17:20 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
The UN Global Compact is the nail in their coffin.
Robbing the western tax base through charities and NGOs to support their marxist globalist ideal will have to function without the west.
We've had enough
Tusiriakest
2020-07-25 at 21:42 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
It's not like he could do much more.. the UN is a forum of countries, and democracy has nothing to do with international relations. Having the UN doing what it is doing for poverty, food programs, educational programs and, security wise, in CAR, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan and so on, is already a major accomplishment. In the end, big powers will do what big powers want, and having the UN as a ruled-based stage is, again, already a great achievement. With all this anti-multilateralism moviment in Russia, China, Brazil, UK and US, of course the UN's work will be harder. May I remind that the UN isn't a thing on its own? it will be what the countries in it want it to be… having this in mind, I actually think this Secretary-General is doing what is possible to do, while trying to sail this boat in such stormy weather (this analogy works wonders, him being Portuguese)
Apoptosis
2020-07-26 at 11:29 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
The UN is useless and should be abolished.
ExZed
2020-07-26 at 14:55 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
The whole UN needs a reform!
x iLeon
2020-07-31 at 14:57 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
"Listening" rarely yields results – muscle, bullying and war do…
turpan aksu
2020-07-31 at 21:32 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
UN is a joke !!
CHINA IS A MURDEROUS STATE AND REPRESENTS HUMANITY, WHAT A JOKE!!!
Holy Spirit
2020-08-01 at 15:57 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
The UN is irrelevant and needs to be abolished or reformed to become the UNA (United Nations of America) and in doing so get rid of OAS.
Станислав Вышинский
2020-08-05 at 00:27 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
It's just that after the victory in the Cold War, the United States, as the winner, had to transfer all the world's nuclear weapons under the control of the UN. Disband all armies in the world and leave only 1 UN-led army. But the United States decided to play the Empire so that there is nothing to be surprised that we are back to 1914.
Abhijeet Kashyap
2020-08-17 at 08:19 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
The UN would be reduced to nothing more than the League of Nations. History would repeat itself within next two decades!
faberr20
2020-08-18 at 19:29 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
We have to accept that we could live the us with a second world power like China. Of course the us as the first world power, for that we have to have better relationship with the chinese
faberr20
2020-08-18 at 19:30 (UTC 2) Link to this comment
And the Chinese should continue taking distance from the russians