China has penetrated UN undercutting its oversight function: US official

WASHINGTON: The Chinese government has "penetrated" the United Nations, undercutting its oversight functions by stacking bodies like the UN Human Rights Council with its own people, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told a Senate hearing, according to a media report.

Asked by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez about State Department's efforts to push back against China's "systematic effort to subvert the ability of the United Nations human rights system", Sherman said that it was important for the United States to maintain representation at the organisation, RFA reported.

"You're quite right, the Chinese operate in the UN system very effectively," Sherman told Menendez, a Democratic Senator from New Jersey.

"They have put people in junior positions, which you simply can sign up for financially and put people into slots, and then those people move up the chain in the UN system."

Sherman said the State Department has "a lot of work to do" to counteract Beijing's growing influence at the United Nations, RFA reported.

"Our UN Ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, is very engaged in looking at all the ways that Chinese have penetrated the UN system and figuring out with our [State Department] International Organization Bureau ways to challenge all of that," she said.

Menendez, for his part, mused to Sherman that the US government could adopt the same strategy of stacking UN agency staffing lists with its own people to counteract China's putative efforts, RFA reported.

"Not to want to copy too many things from Chinese, but we could definitely take a lesson from their paper," he said, noting that Beijing had "methodically implemented their people in a way that ultimately leads them to have influence on a wide variety [of bodies] across the UN - and that's not the only place, [also the] World Health Organization."