By Mark Magnier

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A senior Chinese diplomat implicated the United States on Monday for holding back developing countries and called on Washington to stop tearing down global institutions.
The comments in New York by Fu Cong, Beijing’s ambassador to the United Nations, did not mention the US by name. But his remarks appeared clearly directed at the administration of US President Donald Trump, with its focus on eroding institutions worldwide and breaking norms.
“Unilateralism, driven by some countries, is wearing its ugly hat and yielding severe blows to the authority and effectiveness of multilateralism,” Fu said at a forum sponsored by Beijing at the UN. “Global governance is never about tearing down the current system.”
Since he was inaugurated eight months ago, Trump has pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accord and several UN agencies and undercut US alliances, in keeping with his America-first agenda.
The forum, dubbed “Vision China,” was designed to reflect on the “enduring legacy of World War II” and highlight the importance of “multilateralism and peacebuilding in the 21st century”. This came as global leaders descended on New York to attend next week’s gathering of global leaders at the UN General Assembly.

China’s war-related event follows a massive show of force and nationalist pride earlier this month in Beijing that saw leaders from 26 nations attend events hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
During Beijing’s war commemoration, Trump criticised Beijing for not giving the US enough credit for Washington’s role in defeating the Japanese during World War II.
Monday’s UN event comes at a time when multilateralism is under strain as the global economy wobbles and Trump mounts an aggressive tariff strategy, blocks migrants and undercuts support for global groupings in keeping with other far-right European parties.
In a gesture to the United States following Monday’s news of eased trade tensions out of a high-level meeting in Spain, the conference also cited interest in revisiting “the historic cooperation between China and the United States during the war and examine how shared memory can help shape a more peaceful future”.
“The two sides fully recognise that a stable China-US economic and trade relationship is of great significance to both countries and also has a major impact on global economic stability and development,” said Li Chenggang, top Chinese trade negotiator with the Ministry of Commerce, on Monday in Madrid, according to Xinhua.
But China will “never seek to reach any agreement at the expense of principles, interests of companies, or international fairness and justice”, Li added.
As Washington has pulled back from its UN commitments, China has doubled down on the institution, presenting itself as the responsible global partner at a time of growing global instability.
Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Center for Sustainable Development, touted China’s strong support for the UN. Noting that almost all UN facilities were in the US and Europe, he urged China to open a “huge campus” in Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzhen to right the balance. “Please do not be shy about this,” he said. “The world really needs this.”
“What we are grappling with today are the underrepresentation of the Global South, the underlying authority of nationalism and the underperformance of the international community,” Fu told the forum, co-hosted by China Daily and China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations. “The structure we built decades ago is increasingly out of step in this, today’s reality.”