Representative says status as biggest developing country should be considered
China on Thursday voiced opposition to a United Nations proposal to increase the nation's contribution to the two-year multi-billion-dollar budget for 2016-17, saying that it had a limited capacity as the world's largest developing country.
Wang Min, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, said at the Thursday UN session that the budget committee should fairly assess China's abilities as a developing country with a low per capita income despite being the second largest economy in the world.
Under the proposal, China's share of the regular and peacekeeping budget would increase from around 5.15 pecent to 7.92 percent. This would put China third following the US and Japan, while the share of previous forerunners, France, the UK and Germany, drops.
Wang said that China opposed any practice that treated the nation differently than any other developing country and the nation will shoulder its fiscal responsibility so long as the methodology is fair, just and reasonable.
Wang also called for a spirit of partnership in the budget process, which should be transparent and inclusive. He added that all parties' concerns should be taken into consideration and it is necessary to avoid politicizing the process and prevent any discriminative practices.
China will also pay its share in full and on time, he stressed.
According to the UN website, the proposed regular budget outline for 2016-17 would total $5.69 billion, an increase of 2.9 percent from the current budget.
By October 2014, the total amount of payments in arrears was $3.5 billion, of which $337 million is still owed by the U.S., according to UN management chief Yukio Tanaka.
Zheng Qirong, vice president of the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Friday that each country's budget share should be based on its capacity to pay, which is determined by both GDP and per capita income.
"Some may have over-emphasized GDP when making the proposal, now that China is the world's second largest economy. However, they ignored that fact that China is a country with low per capita income, which still ranks below the global average. The proposed budget share should not be divorced from reality," Zheng said.
The budget share increase may also be because the committee sees China as a special developing country, thus leading to a smaller concession or even a cancelation of concessions on the budget, according to Zhang Guihong, executive dean of the UN Studies Center at Fudan University in Shanghai.
China's budget has been on the rise since 2000, alongside its economy. The proportion stayed at 1.54 percent between 2001 and 2003 and rose to over 2 percent after 2004.
Meanwhile, China has publicly committed $1 billion for a peace fund with the UN, and vowed to build a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops, as well as $100 million to the African Union for peacekeeping, after Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the UN in late September.
The billion-dollar offers, however, are separate from the UN budget, as the latter is compulsory for every UN member and is strictly managed by a set of regulations, Zheng explained.
"But the donations show China's willingness to shoulder more responsibility as a major power."
While analysts pointed out that the increased budget share do not mean more benefits, some suggested that China take a more active role in the UN.
"China can win support for more UN offices or headquarters in the country. The increased budget share does not indicate any support, but we can use it as leverage to expand our influence," Zhang told news site thepaper.cn.
