As Security Council president in August, China wants to keep the UN body “cool” — literally and figuratively — by navigating the fine line of staying close to Russia while not souring relations too much with the West; discussing global “security” without mentioning any of China’s own human-rights problems and contested territorial claims; and championing a no-tie look while giving Chinese fans to Council ambassadors amid lowered air-conditioning temperatures in UN headquarters.
We are joined in our latest podcast episode of UN-Scripted by Richard Gowan, the UN director of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization based in New York City. Gowan offers insights into China’s approach to the presidency of the Council this month — keeping dynamics “light” in the dog days of August. As Ambassador Zhang Jun said on Aug. 1 at a media briefing, China wants to cool down the “working temperatures” of his fellow ambassadors, whose tensions have been running high. To do so, his country is offering fans to fellow ambassadors written with a saying by Lao Tzu, the ancient philosopher, who used idioms to express that the “best virtue is like water”; meaning, water is both soft and hard, so it can “change everything,” Zhang said.
Each month, PassBlue profiles UN ambassadors as their countries assume the Council presidency. To hear more details about the goals of China in August and to hear Gowan’s assessment of the country, listen to UN-Scripted, produced by Kacie Candela and Damilola Banjo, with research by Allison Lecce, on SoundCloud and Patreon. (A text article on China’s presidency will be published separately.) — DAMILOLA BANJO and KACIE CANDELA
Damilola Banjo is an award-winning staff reporter for PassBlue who has covered a wide range of topics, from Africa-centered stories to gender equality to UN peacekeeping and US-UN relations. She also oversees all video production for PassBlue. She was a Dag Hammarskjold fellow in 2023 and a Pulitzer Center postgraduate fellow in 2021. She was part of the BBC Africa team that produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Sex for Grades.” In addition, she worked for WFAE, an NPR affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. Banjo has a master’s of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and an undergraduate degree from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.
Kacie Candela was a freelance contributor to PassBlue from March 2017 through September 2022.
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