New York is becoming a stage for speeches, not decisions

The 81st United Nations General Assembly opened under the unusually self-aware theme of “Restoring trust, managing transformation: a United Nations that delivers for all”. Yet one of the week’s most revealing diplomatic images was not in New York at all. President Xi Jinping travelled to Washington for a state visit and direct talks with US president, Donald Trump, while China sent Vice President Han Zheng to the General Debate. Russia, meanwhile, sent foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, to New York. Only weeks earlier, Xi and Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had both attended the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summits in person. It would be too simple to declare the UN irrelevant on the strength of leaders’ travel schedules, and there is […]