China urges UN to address surfeit of developed countries on council

China's ambassador to the United Nations on Monday urged the UN Security Council to improve the representation of developing countries.

He also called for correcting the historical injustice suffered by Africa, and for more opportunities to small- and medium-sized countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America, along with Arab countries and small island countries to serve on the council and play an important role.

"Reform cannot only satisfy the selfish interest of a few. At present, the make-up of the Security Council is out of balance between the North and the South, and reform should correct the overrepresentation of developed countries," Zhang Jun, China's permanent representative to the UN, said at the Plenary Meeting on Security Council Reform of the 76th Session of the UN General Assembly.

"The United Nations is a symbol of multilateralism. It carries the ardent expectation and relentless pursuit of people all over the world for peace and development after two world wars," Zhang said.

"In the face of a centennial change and global pandemics, and in order to effectively respond to global challenges, we need a strengthened United Nations to improve global governance, practice true multilateralism and make greater efforts for democratic international relations underpinned by the rule of law," he said.

Zhang pointed out that as the core of the collective security mechanism, the Security Council needs to improve its authority and efficiency and better discharge the duties entrusted to it by the UN Charter through comprehensive reform.

"A Security Council that is efficient, more representative and fully embodies equity and democracy is the common expectation of member states," he said.

At the same time, the reform of the Security Council is "of great importance, having implications on war and peace and the future of the collective security mechanism", he said.

"We should draw experience from past negotiations on the council's reform and earnestly proceed from the common interests of all member states to ensure that the reform process moves in the right direction, so as to ensure a reform for all and a reform for fairness and justice," the envoy said.

Zhang emphasized that international society needs to ensure that all countries share the fruits of reform. "The United Nations belongs to the 193 member states. All countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, should all benefit from the council reform," he said.

The international society "needs to enhance the unity and trust among member states", said Zhang. "The council reform involves the major interests and concerns of states. Efforts need to be made to engage in full communication and respect their opinions and concerns of all parties. No reform package can be made at the expense of the unity of member states.

"The attempt of a small number of countries to forcibly push forward a reform plan in which there are still great differences among the parties will only aggravate differences and antagonism, trigger confrontation, undermine the atmosphere of mutual trust, unity and cooperation among member states, and will not help maintain the momentum of reform and sustain the achievement already made," the envoy said.