NEW YORK, Sept 21 \u2013 With the United Nations set to turn 80 next month, veteran diplomat Kishore Mahbubani said that the world body is both \u201ca miracle\u201d of endurance and \u201cunder threat\u201d, and he urged major powers to recommit to the UN Charter and strengthen the organization as the planet\u2019s \u201cglobal village council\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking via video on Monday at a Vision China event held in New York, the former president of the UN Security Council said the 80th anniversary on Oct 24 should prompt sober reflection on the UN\u2019s role in an increasingly interdependent world.<\/p>\n
The UN\u2019s survival since its founding in 1945 was itself a remarkable achievement, especially compared to the collapse of its predecessor, the League of Nations, said Mahbubani, who served as Singapore\u2019s permanent representative to the UN.<\/p>\n
But he cautioned that some major powers are \u201cwalking away from the commitments\u201d they made under the UN Charter, leaving the institution under threat.<\/p>\n
He argued that global crises of the 21st century \u2014 from the 2008 financial meltdown to the ongoing threat of climate change \u2014 prove that humanity lives in \u201cone small global village\u201d where no one nation can insulate itself from the problems of others.<\/p>\n
The global financial crisis, which began in the United States, \u201calmost brought the world economy down\u201d, he said, adding that climate change, what he called one of humanity\u2019s biggest challenges ever, is threatening \u201cour small, fragile \u2018Spaceship Earth’\u201d.<\/p>\n
Quoting the late UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Mahbubani said, \u201cWhen we live in a global village, or in any village, we have to take care of each other, because if one house catches fire in the village, all the houses in the village will catch fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UN, founded after World War II, is anchored in a charter that affirms the sovereign equality and territorial integrity of states. Those principles, Mahbubani said, have helped prevent the invasion and occupation of smaller states. \u201cFor that alone, we should thank the UN Charter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rather than creating a new institution from scratch, Mahbubani urged nations to \u201cbuild on the one that we have\u201d. He praised China for launching its Global Governance Initiative ahead of the UN\u2019s 80th anniversary, calling on all major powers to \u201cloudly state\u201d their intent to bolster the UN as the central platform for managing shared challenges.<\/p>\n
Mahbubani also said Asia should assume a bigger leadership role, arguing that many Western governments are \u201cunable to provide the leadership the world needs\u201d. Asian countries, he said, tend to be \u201cpragmatic and not ideological\u201d in their approaches to global challenges, a mindset he regarded as essential for navigating a \u201cmultipolar, multi-civilizational\u201d world.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to have such a dialogue among civilizations, it\u2019s very important that we learn to treat each other with respect and try to understand each other better,\u201d he said, urging participants at the Vision China event to generate new ideas from Asia to strengthen global governance and promote peace.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK, Sept 21 \u2013 With the United Nations set to turn 80 next month, veteran diplomat Kishore Mahbubani said that the world body is both \u201ca miracle\u201d of endurance and \u201cunder threat\u201d, and he urged major powers to recommit to the UN Charter and strengthen the organization as the planet\u2019s \u201cglobal village council\u201d. Speaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}