The United Nations is not for anyone to enter if they want. The annual membership dues are the foundation of the basics. However, as world-class powers, China, the United States and Russia have completely different "treatment".
The difference between China and Russia's contributions is 10 times, and the annual contributions payable by the United States are more, but people can not pay, and it is not fair to say.
Why can the United States delay debt?The United Nations has no means to punish?
Who sets the price?
The accounts of the United Nations are really confusing, because more than 120 countries have paid in all of this year's "sub-money" early, for fear of making things wrong. However, the United States, which should pay the most and have the largest size, has become a "Lao Lai" professional household, hanging on the list of arrears all the year round, and it has been hanging for decades.
In terms of the 2024 bill, China needs to pay membership fees to account for approximately RMB 3.2 billion, while Russia, facing severe sanctions from the West, has also prepared about RMB 3.5 million, but not to mention that the U.S. debt, which bears the highest proportion of 22%, is unmoving and rises to a billion dollars.
The assessment ratio of the United Nations is really a bit magical. As for how the money is apportioned, we need to talk about a concept-"ability to pay"The simplest thing to say is who is deep and who gets more points, want the second war just finished that will, what is the position of the United States?
Therefore, when the United Nations was first founded, the United States alone borne nearly 40% of the membership dues. At that time, the weight of the United States' speech in the United Nations completely matched this figure. However, decades of wind turning, the map of the world economy has long changed, the most typical example is China.
Time back in 2000, China's share of UN contributions is still less than 1%, but after that, China's economy is like sitting on a rocket, and by 2019, China's contributions share has surpassed the second-ranked Japan, staying in the second place.
By 2024, this number has risen to 15%, although there is a lot more money, but we can also intuitively see how fast China’s rise is.Let’s look at Russia, which, as one of the Security Council’s five constants, has a considerable political position, but its share of contributions is poor.
However, Russia does have no money, because since the war started, the Russian economy has faced huge difficulties under Western sanctions. The account of the United Nations is so "real". Without any emotion, it records the ups and downs of each player's national strength, making it clear at a glance how the balance of global power tilts.
Look at my mood.
As a member of the United Nations, paying contributions should be the right thing, but it is not known when this international obligation that should be observed becomes rejectable, and can also become a political card in the hand, opening up this game is the United States, and play the furnace.
At first, the United Nations was like a club for the United States to join with a large number of countries.In particular, the situation changed after China restored its legitimate seat, the United States found that it can no longer cry out, the United States even complained that the United Nations has become the “tyranny of the majority”, mentality changed, action followed, money became the best weapon.
They invented a set of "politics of arrears." As early as 1986, the U.S. Congress passed an amendment to publicly link the payment of dues to whether the United Nations reforms in accordance with the wishes of the United States. This is a naked threat. What's more, the United States '"rolling arrears" strategy. According to the United Nations Charter, if a country's arrears of dues equals or exceeds the sum of the previous two years, its voting rights will be suspended.
The United States has played an extreme operation, precisely controlling the amount of debt under this red line, which can both disgust the United Nations, And it is not about losing the right to vote, the reason is even more, one time is dissatisfaction with the resolution on the Palestinian issue, one time is the feeling that the UN is not able to do.
On the one hand, the United States cries to the United Nations that it has no money to pay dues, but on the other hand, it does not blink an eye to Ukraine and the Taiwan authorities in its military assistance, which often cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In contrast, China's choices are much more rational. Since China returned to the United Nations in 1971, its payment record has been clear.
In 2019, the full-year dues were even paid in advance. United Nations officials publicly thanked China in Chinese, praising China as "one of the most reliable partners". This reliable and responsible image, It has won a great reputation for China among developing countries, and it is also "using money", the purpose and pattern, and it makes a judgment.
The ladder stopped, and the United Nations was poor.
Big powers are playing tricks on the issue of dues, but the real bitter fruit is swallowed by the whole worldThe UN Secretary-General has repeatedly warned that the financial situation of the United Nations has reached the point of the “death line”, which is not alarming, and the effects of the financial crisis have already appeared.
Because of the lack of money, the UN headquarters in Geneva even automatic stairs were shut down and office hours were forced to be shortened.It sounds like a high school episode, but it’s real, and even worse is the invisible impact of refugees waiting for food and medicines in Africa, who may be stuck in distress because of the lack of funding for humanitarian aid programs.
Peacekeeping operations around the world, also due to the shortage of funds, face the same bill, different countries have given very different answers, China's answer is to fulfill international obligations, is the responsibility of the great powers, and America's answer is my interests first, international rules to serve me.
This attitude of "I won't give money if it doesn't suit me" not only directly hurts the United Nations, but what's worse is that it sets a very bad example and takes the lead in breaking the rules. Why can "Lao Lai" behavior be so unscrupulous? Because the punitive provisions in the UN Charter are almost false in the face of some countries’ “precise calculations.”
The lack of strong constraints and enforcement makes the entire financial mechanism extremely fragileThe crisis of UN contributions has long gone beyond the scope of financial statements, and to solve this problem, the payment of debts alone is far from sufficient, it is really necessary to move a knife from the rules level.
For example, increasing the cost of arrears or restricting the qualifications of arrears in the United Nations can make punishment truly powerful, but in the final analysis, what needs to be changed most is the mentality of some big countries. If the United Nations is always regarded as a tool to realize one's own interests rather than a common platform for maintaining world peace and development, then any institutional design may be exploited.
Only when all member states, especially those influential powers, truly regard the payment of dues as an unshirkable common responsibility, rather than a bargaining chip, can the United Nations, a big ship carrying the common hope of mankind, move forward smoothly in the storm and waves.
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