If the end of 2024 saw the rise of a new era in the United States (US), it appears to have happened at its creation, the United Nations (UN), too, making China a near equal of the US. On Christmas Eve, the UNGA adopted a new scale of assessments for the UN’s regular budget upping China’s share to 20% and making it almost equal to that of the US, which has capped its share at 22% for years.
The regular budget of the UN, pegged at $3.7 billion for 2025, though small in absolute terms, finances the main UN Secretariat and salaries of key UN personnel and hence its influence can hardly be overstated. In fact, the assessed level is an indicator of the relevance of individual member-states in the power game of nations, the UN.
Since its inception nearly 80 years ago, the top contributors to the UN have been western nations. This naturally saw them lead the thinking at the UN, not only through the power play that money brings but also through the placement of their people at various key places in the UN Secretariat.
Germany and Japan were “enemies” in 1945 but once they bounced back into the western order by the mid-1980s, they too joined the circle of big paymasters. No doubt, in the aftermath of the collapse of the USSR, a major attempt was made to make them permanent members of the Security Council following the dictum, one who pays calls the shots. This “reform” of the UNSC was only stalled by the adroitness of Indian diplomats, who roped in Brazil and reached out to the developing world leaving Germany and Japan little option but to be part of the G-4 on UNSC reform.
The rise of China has now been noted for years but its importance at the global high table needs to be now seen as more than the Security Council veto. It now challenges the US-led western hegemony and suggests a certain G2 in the global order no matter that the UN is headquartered in New York and there is still a significant difference in economic and strategic power between the US and China, including in the US’s overall contributions to the UN system through its funds, programmes and specialised agencies.
With President Trump having been inaugurated and heralding a “greater, stronger and far more exceptional (America)”, hopefully, the China challenge at the UN will light up a lamp at the White House and elicit a response other than cutting back on its contribution or withdrawing as is being done for the WHO and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. These moves, though portrayed as a strategy for the organisation to “listen”, result in a vacuum in leadership for which now a contender stands in the shadows. For India, of course, a G2-type scenario at the UN raises major concerns about multipolarity and a certain overbearing influence of China at the UN.
In determining the scale of assessment, the UN goes by two broad criteria — a country’s share of global GDP and a discount for low per-capita income countries. India avails the latter’s benefit and contributes just about 1% of the UN’s budget.
For years, the accepted theory in India, including by officers like this author, was that not availing of the low per-capita income discount would only mean paying into coffers where the power would continue to be western and P5 dominated. However, now India is the largest country in the world and the fifth largest economy on its way to becoming the third largest one. Our aspirations for a seat on the global high tables, rightly, mirror these facts no matter that we have a long way to go in becoming a rich country.
India has been at the forefront of reform of the UNSC with the addition of its permanent membership. While such a reform with veto seems a tough one, especially given likely Chinese opposition, there are possibilities to be explored, short of the veto, even for a permanent seat through negotiations and pushing the biggies to realise that having India inside the tent was better for them. The formation of the G20 is a case in point. The key to all this, of course, is to be a country that assumes responsibility, diplomatic jargon that means pays. This must be for the regular budget and not voluntary contributions, which India also makes but which go towards areas of direct interest to it.
The higher contribution also allows seeing the induction of our senior and qualified people for policy-level placements in the UN, not just on their own merit but as nominees of India, a major plus in the UN system. This, indeed, is the practice followed by the major players — the US has long held the job of undersecretary-general for political affairs and the French, the one for peacekeeping. In recent times, the Chinese have claimed the economic and social affairs department. Similarly, the Russians, the UK, the Germans, and the Japanese all have their people in key UN slots.
The rise of China as a paymaster at the UN and our major interest in a place at the global high table would appear to demand a rethink on paying into the UN.
Manjeev Singh Puri is a former deputy permanent representative of India to the UN.The views expressed are personal
