India’s Chanakya rebuked China-Pakistan on UN reforms, also attacked multilateralism

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took a dig at the US-led West while addressing the issue of UN reforms at the Raisina Dialogue 2024 in New Delhi. Jaishankar said world rules have been tampered with and argued that there is a larger global rebalancing that is bigger than the United Nations. Referring to globalization, he said that if you look at the last five years, we have not been able to find multilateral solutions to all the major issues.

Jaishankar said the short-sighted vision of the five permanent member states of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is an obstacle to moving forward on the path of long-pending reform in this global body. In a session of ‘Raisina Dialogue’, he said that the biggest opponent of reforming the UN Security Council is not any western country. His comment is being seen as an indirect reference to China. The Foreign Minister said that the sentiments for change in the UN system are very strong, but the challenge is to get consent for it from some quarters.

He said if you were to ask five countries if they would consider changing rules that would reduce their power, guess what the answer would be.

Jaishankar said that if they are wise then the answer will be something else, but if they are less visionary then the answer will be what we are seeing today. The five permanent members of the UNSC are Russia, Britain, America, China and France. These countries can stop any proposal by using ‘veto’. There is a growing demand to increase the number of permanent members to reflect the contemporary global reality.