Diplomacy & Crisis News

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution to impose sanctions on the DPRK in order to curb the country’s nuclear and missile programs. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

Of all Donald Trump’s transitional appointments, perhaps the least controversial has been his choice of South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for UN ambassador.

Haley, who will need to be confirmed by the Senate, is a seasoned politician at the national level but has far less foreign policy expertise, an experience gap that could quickly make itself felt as the governor juggles dealing with the UN bureaucracy while handling major rivals like Russia and China.

First on Haley’s plate will be turning her boss’s mostly unarticulated views on the United Nations into a coherent approach to the global body. During the campaign, Trump indulged in strident criticism of the UN, denouncing it in a speech to AIPAC as “not a friend” of freedom, democracy, the US, or Israel.

In that same vein, the President-elect has threatened to dismantle some of the Obama era’s key multilateral accomplishments. He pledged to pull the US out of the Paris climate and tear up the nuclear deal with Iran, fatally undercutting two of the UN’s banner accomplishments. This would anger the other members of the Security Council, who backed the Iran agreement unanimously, as well as the UN leadership who helped bring both to fruition.

Trump has also denounced Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba, widely supported at the UN, and vowed to “veto any attempt by the U.N. to impose its will on the Jewish state.”

For diplomats used to Obama-style multilateralism, Trump’s victory has been a harsh shock. The UN has long had a fraught relationship with Republicans, but Obama had mostly shielded the organization from their reach.

Even Obama, though, has at times found himself at odds with the UN. He has consistently shielded Israel from UN criticism, and is the only president since 1967 to not allow a single Security Council resolution specifically condemning Israel. During Obama’s tenure, the US also defunded UNESCO after the agency admitted Palestine to its ranks.

Where Obama’s approach to the UN has been muted, the Congressional Republicans who will need to confirm Haley’s nomination have been far more outspoken. To that end, Florida representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced a United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act in 2015 that would have pushed for voluntary US funding of the UN and required an itemized justification of the funds the US government was contributing to the UN budget. Those demands aren’t new: Marco Rubio introduced an identical bill in the Senate in 2011.

The opaqueness of American contributions to the UN, as described by Rubio and Ros-Lehtinen, is a major sticking point. The most recent example involves the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which operates as part of the World Health Organization and receives substantial funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is currently leading a Congressional inquiry into NIH’s funding of IARC,  which has been criticized by other scientific bodies over a series of controversial findings that break from those of regulators in both the US and Europe.

These include glyphosate, a common herbicide IARC determined “probably carcinogenic” in contradiction of recent findings issued by the EPA and international health authorities. Alongside glyphosate, however, IARC has also found itself on the defensive for its evaluations of processed meats and especially coffee, which it insinuated was carcinogenic for well over two decades before changing its mind this year. The agency’s critics, Chaffetz among them, say the agency lacks transparency and scientific rigor and is too quick and too liberal with the carcinogenic label.

With a fellow skeptic replacing Obama in the White House, initiatives like the Chaffetz investigation are likely to pick up steam. While a stricter approach to America’s share of the UN budget will ruffle diplomatic feathers, the new administration and its Congressional allies have a strong hand to play.

Namely, the US is the single largest contributor to the UN budget, with its mandatory and voluntary payments amounting to about $8 billion annually. With Washington on the hook for 22% of the UN’s regular budget and 28% of the peacekeeping budget, American lawmakers have considerable power of the purse: UNESCO, for example, had to forego over a fifth of its operating budget when it lost US funding.

As US ambassador, Haley will be the embodiment of America’s attitude to the UN apparatus. After all, one of the main sources of relief among diplomats in New York at the news of the Haley appointment was that Donald Trump would not be sending another “angry white man” in the mold of John Bolton.

That honeymoon might not survive an era of intensified Congressional scrutiny and lower contributions, but the measure of influence that the US maintains over the UN structures will depend in large part on Haley and her ability to channel her gubernatorial experience in dealing with an entrenched bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, the US in general and Haley in particular will be bringing far less firepower to the UN Security Council. The new ambassador will have to navigate pressure from both Russia and China; Moscow has repeatedly reminded the rest of the Security Council who calls the shots in the Syrian war, stonewalling resolutions from the other permanent members and agreeing to UN observers in Aleppo only after its allies took most of the city.

Of course, the new president-elect’s professed willingness to work with Russia on Syria could mean Haley spends less time arguing and more time acquiescing. In either event, Beijing will continue quietly gaining ground on Washington and Moscow within the UN bureaucracy, making moves like increasing its funding for UN peacekeeping operations to increase its influence while its main rivals focus on mutual recriminations in the Middle East.

While the particulars of Nikki Haley’s ambassadorship will remain a matter of conjecture until she takes her seat, one thing is for certain: come January, things are going to get interesting in New York.

The post Nikki Haley Steps into the Turtle Bay Meat Grinder appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Anastasia Lin (Wikimedia Commons)

Recent events surrounding Chinese Canadian beauty queen and human rights activist Anastasia Lin‘s participation in this year’s Miss World pageant illustrate the negative effects of China’s growing global influence. Nominated twice to represent Canada in the pageant, Lin was banned from participating in the 2015 contest held in China; and has now been barred from speaking on human rights at this year’s contest in the United States (See Boston Globe, Epoch Times, New York Magazine, New York Times, Toronto Star, Washington Post).

A native of mainland China who immigrated to Canada as a teenager, Ms. Lin has been outspoken in her criticism of China’s atrocious human rights record. As a practitioner of the Falun Gong spiritual practice banned in China, she has dedicated herself particularly to fighting religious persecution in China. China’s efforts to silence her have included threats by Chinese authorities against her father in China. In 2015, Lin was denied entry to China to participate in the contest held in Sanya on Hainan Island.

“The Chinese government has barred me from the competition for political reasons,” said Lin when she was banned from the 2015 contest, “They are trying to punish me for my beliefs and prevent me from speaking out about human rights issues…. The slogan of the Miss World competition is ‘Beauty with a purpose.’ My purpose is to advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves—those who suffer in prisons and labour camps, or whose voices have been stifled by repression and censorship.”

This year’s contest was held in Washington D.C., where free speech is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. Under Chinese corporate sponsorship, however, the pageant’s U.S. organizers and the London-based Miss World Organization have now become enforcers of Chinese censorship.

Lin has been barred from speaking with the media, and even a U.S. State Department official was refused access to Lin unless “accompanied by a pageant employee, who insisted on attending the meeting.” A friend of Ms. Lin’s reported: “They have specifically told her not to talk about human rights during the pageant, even though that is her official platform…. She is very frustrated.”

Boston Globe writer Jeff Jacoby describes the scene in a Washington DC hotel lobby, as pageant officials behaved exactly like Chinese government thugs when he tried to interview Lin: “A Miss World employee saw us talking, and demanded an explanation…. The employee instantly called in reinforcements. Soon there were three officials. Two of them hustled Lin from the lobby, angrily accusing her of breaching the rules and causing trouble. The third blocked me from talking to Lin, and assured me that my interview would be scheduled the next day. It wasn’t, of course.”

The increasingly “long shadow of Chinese censorship” has been noted for several years. China’s efforts at silencing its critics around the world have included harassment of exiled Chinese dissidents, pressure on international film and literary festivals to bar works by Chinese dissidents, economic pressure on international news media to produce more “positive” China coverage, and cyber-attacks on news and human rights websites. Now even the Hollywood movie industry appears ready to submit to Chinese censorship for access to the Chinese market.

“We all live under threat from the Chinese regime,” Lin wrote in 2015, “Too easily we accept this kind of coercion as the social norm, blaming those who speak out rather than those who wield the batons…. Leaving China doesn’t make one free, not when friends and family there become hostages. Freedom comes when we stop accepting tyranny and challenge those who would preserve it.”

The post Chinese Censorship Comes to Miss World Pageant appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

Following are brief summaries of some of today’s news stories from around the UN system. Click on the links provided for more detailed coverage.

(Own report) - In light of the western powers' possible massive loss of influence in the Middle East, German foreign policy-makers are intensifying their threats of sanctions on Moscow. Norbert Röttgen (CDU), Chair of the Foreign Policy Committee of the German parliament calls for economic punishment to be imposed for suspected or actual war crimes committed by the Russian military in East Aleppo. The renowned British Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk, strongly criticizes the rampant propaganda campaign raging - also here in Germany - around the hard fought battle for East Aleppo. Fisk notes that it is remarkable that the militias in East Aleppo are being euphemized as "rebels," because one of the most powerful among them is an Al Qaeda subsidiary. After all, that embellishes and is protective toward those responsible for 9/11. Besides, the large number of civilian casualties caused by western air raids in the war against IS is being ignored. A renowned NGO source in the USA estimates currently more than 2,000 civilians killed. The notorious double standards of western propaganda are accompanying the US and European powers' unsuccessful efforts to thwart Russia's rising influence in the Middle East.

The Islamic State's South Asia branch looks doomed to fail.

The Indian Air Force intends to procure at least 100 new radar systems for its latest fighter jet.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the killing of a peacekeeper from South Africa deployed with the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) in North Kivu earlier today.

Amid growing tensions and increasing despair among South Sudan’s population, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today warned that the international community’s failure to act now could put the country on a trajectory towards mass atrocities.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today commended decisions by a bloc of West African countries to take all necessary actions to enforce the outcome of the presidential election in Gambia, guarantee the protection of President-elect Adama Barrow, and attend the new leader’s inauguration ceremony on 19 January 2017.

Strongly condemning the assassination today of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov in Ankara, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations Security Council emphasized that there is no justification for targeting diplomatic personnel and civilians.

Move could be another advance for an expanding defense relationship.

Johm Rungswang meets defense officials and oversees the opening of a trilateral air exercise with the United States.

Insights from Rodney Faraon.

Following an official visit to the United States, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons is calling for improvements to legislation and additional resources to combat cases of forced labour and labour exploitation.

Countries attending the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Mexico reached agreements on actions to integrate biodiversity in forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and tourism sectors and to achieve the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.

The United Nations envoy for Afghanistan today called on the Taliban to participate in peace talks with the national Government, stressing that the conflict in the country has no military solution and the only path to a meaningful peace is through intra-Afghan dialogue.

The shocking killing of the Russian Ambassador has unclear ramifications.

China’s interests in the Middle East may lead Beijing to assume a military role in the affairs of Arab states.

The United Nations and the State of Palestine today jointly launched an appeal seeking $547 million in funding for 2017 to support the humanitarian needs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Raising alarm over “double standards” applied by the authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – allowing pro-government youths to conduct public political activities while repressing dissenting voices – a group of United Nations rights experts today called on the Government to end the “targeted repression” and to guarantee conditions that allow fundamental rights and freedoms to be exercised peacefully.