EVENTS

About the Speaker

Dilip Sinha, who joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1978, was India's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva. He was also ambassador to Greece and has served in India’s missions in Islamabad, Dhaka, Cairo, Bonn and Brasilia. He was head of the United Nations and the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran divisions in the Ministry of External Affairs. He served in the Prime Minister's Office during the term of Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. He was most recently Chairman of the Manipur Public Service Commission. He is conversant in German and French.

Abstract

The People’s Republic of China has arguably had the most chequered membership of the United Nations. While the inclusion of the Kuomintang regime of the Republic of China in the great powers had raised eyebrows then, the People’s Republic, while not yet a member earned an early distinction of being condemned by the United Nations as an aggressor. The issue of replacing the Republic of China by the People’s Republic led to protracted and acrimonious debates in the UN and a boycott of the Security Council by the Soviet Union. The change, when it came after two decades, was an anti-climax, as was the new regime’s performance in the next two.

The People’s Republic of China has since grown in stature and has set at rest any doubts about its great power status and ambitions. It has built its image as a developing country standing side by side with the G-77 and gathered a small band of satellite states whose interests it protects staunchly. China is now stretching its strategic shadow beyond its immediate neighbourhood with its economic heft and military muscle, but it still prefers to let the Russian Federation take the lead on distant international issues. The realignment of these two former communist allies in their new avatars has already heralded a new equation in the Security Council’s power balance.

China’s treatment of the Security Council will be a significant determinant of the performance and, eventually, fate of the most powerful organ of the United Nations