[goku99]

I don't understand what's the point of UN when these things are happening in a permanent UNSC member country. This C has been causing nuisance to their neighbors all the time. They Debt-Trap poor nations and exploit them. From Mongols to India, every neighbor has a problem, they are probably most worst neighbor you could get. Recently it was in news with yet another conflict with India[1]. This needs to stop. Entire World is Struggling to contain COVID while 600 million Chinese are on Vacation [2]

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/16/india-says-officer-two-soldi... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/09/china-attractions-630-millio...

[PeterisP]

The point of UN and UNSC is as a venue to talk about these things and negotiate solutions - it's not like it ever was an option to have an UN that can make binding decisions on the major powers, no major sovereign power would ever agree to that.

The default position is that a sovereign nation can do as it pleases; if other nations does not like it, they are welcome to try and force it to change with military power - but having nuclear deterrent significantly limits such options.

Since you need essentially voluntary compliance, it makes all sense that any "misbehaving" major nations have a seat on the councils (such as the Human Rights Council), since any decision made without involving them would be just completely worthless empty words.

[baybal2]

> The point of UN and UNSC is as a venue to talk about these things and negotiate solutions - it's not like it ever was an option to have an UN that can make binding decisions on the major powers, no major sovereign power would ever agree to that.

You know, the original intent of UN was of an organisation to do exactly this. After the second world war, the determination was made that the no pill is too bitter to prevent the next third reich from coming to existence. And that the free nations will spare no price in blood, nations sovereignty, and economic damage to achieve that.

The UN was then sabotaged in its infancy by the very same major powers who vouched to back it. I will let readers to research by themselves who was the biggest proponent of admitting USSR to UN.

The early history of UN was of it being a Western nations club, and a quite potent body. The later didn't fared well with the same major powers in the West. Look who was the biggest opponent of resolution 377 historically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...

[PeterisP]

While it might have been the intent, that was never a realistic option.

The treaties and decisions of UN can only be binding on the members iff they voluntarily join these treaties. If USSR wasn't admitted to UN, then UN would be even more useless than historically. If UN was designed to be more strict - to require effective, significant delegation/surrender of sovereignty - then even other major powers would not join, and it would also be even more useless than historically.

Theoretically there could be a model of "UN" that would consist of the West trying to impose their decisions on the whole world. But that would require both the will and the ability to actually enforce these decisions despite the cost in blood, and there is neither.

Regarding will, it would have to be sort of like a military aggressive super-NATO - which "the west" was not willing to do; there's a reason why the NATO treaties are strictly as a defensive alliance, and even then limiting the territories which will be defended (so i.e. a military attack on British and French overseas colonies would not trigger any obligations from NATO); and regarding the ability - throughout the Cold War the West was obviously not capable to unilaterally force USSR to do anything, so a super-UN was impossible, and the current UN was the most that was achievable.

[levosmetalo]

And which country was the first one to start dropping bombs on other sovereign countries without a UN mandate? If I remember correctly, it was not China. They never dropped a single bomb on any other country.

[dasudasu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

Also their participation in the Korean War obviously and a bunch of minor skirmishes.

[Paradigma11]

You sure they didn't in the Korea or Sino-Vietnamese War?

[me_me_me]

That's called a Whataboutism. It doesn't address nor make any point.

Its a crude deflection.

One countries atrocities are not an excuse for other to follow their suit

[LordDragonfang]

It's not whataboutism when GP is not-so-subtly accusing China of being the root cause of the problems with the UN. The point it that the problems run much deeper than that.

[preommr]

People need to be realistic about what the UN is.

It's not some global authority that will deal with all issues with fairness and justice.

It's pretty much a way to keep countries connected and acts as a common medium for countries to interoperate. It's pretty toothless and obviously so - sovereign countries aren't just going to hand over power like that.

[zdragnar]

Didn't China just get on to the human rights committee too?

Edit: yes, the human rights council, joined by Russia and Cuba. What a time to be alive.

[tsimionescu]

Cuba has a much better human rights record than Russia, China and the USA, at least as far as their impact on other countries goes. The presence of Saudi Arabia in the Human Rights council is a much worse travesty anyway, by any measure.

[bilbo0s]

If we're going by who has the best records, then you open up a whole can of worms. I agree when you say that Cuba has a better record in recent decades than Russia, the US, and China. If you go back far enough though, even Cuba had violations. And if you go back even further (Batista), you're talking about out and out horrors.

Now of course, where does that stop? Because if we go back in US, Russian, and Chinese history the violations are out and out horrible as well. Some bordering on genocide. (I'm sure if you're a native American, you would say they were genocide.)

Point is, you can't always just throw the human rights violations of great powers into their faces all the time. The countries that are doing so well today in terms of respect for human rights, all had their problems in the past. They don't have problems today probably because they are not powers, let alone great powers. If we demand a spotless past, we'd end up with nothing but, like, eswatini or something. Politically speaking, you have to have the great powers on board.

Would it be better if these powers were not as openly hypocritical as they are? Yes, but that's just how the world works. A necessary evil in my opinion. The council would mean less than it does now if there was just eswatini or botswana or something sitting there saying, "You guys have violations."

[wombatmobile]

Now is nothing special. Australia commenced a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council on On 1 January 2013.

Australia–East Timor spying scandal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia-East_Timor_spying_sc...

Then on 16 October 2017, in New York, the United Nations General Assembly elected Australia to serve on the Human Rights Council (HRC) for the 2018-20 term.

Witness K and the 'outrageous' spy scandal that failed to shame Australia

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/aug/10/witne...

[sushicalculus]

To be frank, that spy scandal is not in the same genre of the other abuses that are being discussed by OP/GP and others.

And it looks like the treaty was renegotiated (Australia was shamed) so I’m not sure why you dug this example up

> In 2018, the parties signed a new agreement which gave 80% of the profits to East Timor and 20% to Australia.

[wombatmobile]

> To be frank, that spy scandal is not in the same genre of the other abuses that are being discussed by OP/GP and others.

I don't mind if you are frank, sushicalculus, in fact I welcome it, so long as you are informed.

In the case of East Timor, you should know that Australia was happy to stand by while Indonesia treated the East Timorese similarly to how China treats the Uyghyrs. Australia only acted after the United States lead, and then did its best to weaken the fledgling East Timor government by cheating it out of oil rights.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/postcolonial-blog...

On the subject of Australian complicity "in the same genre of the other abuses that are being discussed by OP/GP and others", do you know what is happening in West Papua?

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/west-papua-end-australi...

[jiuahweruihawi]

So bugging a political opponent's room is comparable to exterminating an entire ethnic group?

[wombatmobile]

> So bugging a political opponent's room is comparable to exterminating an entire ethnic group?

That's your association, not mine.

I posted to illustrate that membership of a UN council doesn't require ethics or morality.

The consequences of spying on East Timor to gain an advantage in negotiations over oil reserves were that new nation's only source of foreign revenue was severely compromised. East Timorese lived in poverty and the new government was weakened. Is that so different from what bothers you about the plight of the Uyghurs?

[dalbasal]

IMO, this proves the counterpoint.

The UN isn't and isn't supposed to be a political body. It isn't idealistic and it isn't designed to prevent human rights abuses. It is designed to prevent nuclear war between SC members. The HRC is not going to prevent or even deter human rights abuses, it never has.

The UN isn't a world government, isn't supposed to be.

Basically, the UN is a moot point. The UN is not going to do anything about Uygyur persecution in China. Neither is anti-UN shite.

[goku99]

Wasn't it previously occupied by Saudi Arabia? Human rights committee is a joke!

[LatteLazy]

The Security Council nations all agreed that rules didn't apply to Security Council nations. The issue here is the UN has zero power to stop this and that's by design.

[onetimemanytime]

USA, EU members, Canada, Japan, Australia to start have a lot of power to make China think twice. SANCTIONS! Start with small sanctions first and then a sliding scale if they keep going. But good luck getting them all in the same page, they'll try to cheat and cut backroom deals with China.

[scotty79]

Nobody sanctioned USA when George W started two wars on a whim against global community. So, no, nobody is going to sanction China, for exactly the same reasons.

[LatteLazy]

I agree, I'd actively support such action. I'm just pointing out that that's up to those nations, not the UN.

[finolex1]

Your second link seems largely irrelevant to the topic at hand and segues from discussion of the persecution of Uyghers into a generic anti-China rant, of which there are many on other internet forums nowadays.

[bergstromm466]

> They [China] Debt-Trap poor nations and exploit them.

Please don't be racist and mention China's use of these debt mechanisms without also mentioning the West's use of them. Debt-trapping is something that North America and European countries perfected first, in the modern age [1] [2].

[1] https://aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/9/27/the-world-bank-and-...

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/britain-stole-45-t...

Any research by Jason Hickel, Ha-Joon Chang, Paulo Freire, Walter Rodney and others on this topic reveals a very different story from the 'Captain America' version of American statesmanship that is propagandized by Marvel, and Hollywood in general.

[whoevercares]

What’s the point of you second anecdote[2]??? Chinese people suffered the first remember and get it in control. they are well deserved for whatever vacation they want to have. The second half of your comment looks like provocation.

As for the “worst” neighbor part, you can’t just focus on one side of the story. Check the economic statistics and ask the business owners in those neighbor countries if they think China is the worst neighbor. Ask if they want to be given a “better” neighbor while cut their revenue in half. People do benefit from China economically a lot .

Also Everyone wants more in terms of borders and ocean resources, don’t be too biased.

[Open-Sourcery]

What I was thinking as well. "How dare they holiday in their own country where COVID is under control!". We have everything pretty under control in NZ and people are traveling domestically, but I would like to think we are pretty good neighbours...

[throwaway2048]

The point of the UN is to prevent WW3, not act as the world government.

[colechristensen]

What would you have the UN do? (actual question)

When small states misbehave its a clubhouse for correcting them with military force, but what works for small states doesn’t for world powers.

[namelosw]

May I ask what's wrong with the vacation? There was very, very few cases in China recently, and the 600M Chinese vacation are almost entirely domestic travel.

[dalbasal]

The UN(SC) isn't and has never been a "just solution" or even idealistic in any way. It was and is a way to stop (ultimately nuclear) confrontation between members to prevent WWIII.It has been instrumental to this goal, and this is the actual purpose of the UN. The General Assembly is a nicety.

At different points in time, any member could have had such charges like you make leveled at them. This doesn't mean crimes against the Uyghurs (and indigenous people more broadly) should not be challenged, but "abolish the UN" isn't going to help.

[AmericanChopper]

Of all the times in history that a nuclear war has been narrowly averted, I don’t remember the UN ever having anything to do with it.

[dalbasal]

How many time per decade does a border change in a post UN world. How many times in an average decade did borders change before the UN?

Reading this thread has made me depressed. I guess lessons have expiration dates. We're going to have to relearn this one.

[AmericanChopper]

I don't think border changes are a good measure of conflict. Iraq's border hasn't changed since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and it's had plenty of well known conflict since then.

> I guess lessons have expiration dates. We're going to have to relearn this one.

Which lesson are you talking about? The lessons we should have learned after the League of Nations collapsed?

[dalbasal]

Border changes aren't a measure of conflict, and preventing conflict is not the ultimate goal. Preventing total/nuclear war between major power is the goal. Border changes are (were) the way conflicts escalated into the great wars.

This why "aggression," the one international "law" that is taken seriously basically means border violations. The few non voluntary border changes since the late 40s (eg crimea, the west bank) are (despite generations) not recognized by the UN.

All the low power UN institutions cloud people's understanding of the core. The core is the UNSC, non aggression and a few other principle/institutions designed to prevent (basically) the US and Russia/USSR from destroying the world and the cold war cold.

It's not even designed to do last minute conflict resolution. It is designed to take the motive/gain out of war. The lesson is how major war has been avoided for 75 years largely because we can't go from pretence (China's terrible crimes in Xianjing) to war. Pretence will always exist. Major wars are preventable.

[AmericanChopper]

This is completely rewriting history. The purpose of the UN is quite literally:

> To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace

That is directly copy pasted from the UN founding charter, it goes on to talk about friendly relations, cooperation and harmony. You can read the rest here if you like:

https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-i/index.ht...

The only lesson that the UN has learned from the LON, is that if you kick countries out for breaking the rules, then the whole thing falls apart. So in those situations, the UN takes the approach of doing nothing.

> It's not even designed to do last minute conflict resolution. It is designed to take the motive/gain out of war.

This is also rewriting history. The reason we haven't had a major conflict since WWII is because every country capable of creating one has nukes now, and nobody wants to get into a major conflict with a country that has nukes. The reason the US and USSR never got into a direct conflict during the cold war was because they both had nukes, not because the USSR was a member of the UN. Kennedy and Khrushchev resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis together (without the help of the UN incidentally) because neither of them wanted to be nuked, not because they were worried about the other one complaining to the UN.

[baybal2]

> It was and is a way to stop (ultimately nuclear) confrontation between members to prevent WWIII.It has been instrumental to this goal, and this is the actual purpose of the UN. The General Assembly is a nicety.

No, it is not. The exact purpose of UN's founding was for it to be an instrument with which the West would smack down the next third reich wannabe country before it gets too powerful.

[AmericanChopper]

> I don't understand what's the point of UN when these things are happening in a permanent UNSC member country.

It’s a venue for political theatre. Otherwise it’s a pretty good system for funnelling money to corrupt regimes and other NGOs.

The argument that it’s an essential tool for diplomatic relations is pretty much bunk. No country relies on the UN to have diplomatic relations with any other country.

It’s predecessor, the League of Nations, had the decency to dissolve itself after realising how useless it was. The only difference between the LON and the UN, is that the UN has never got around to doing that, despite failing to achieve anything.