The United Nations could be about to begin to be massively reformed to counter China’s takeover of UN structures. If one person can do it, that person is former congressman and former national security advisor Mike Waltz, says Azzem Ibrahim. The commentary is boldly entitled “Xi Jinping’s China about to receive killer blow on global stage of UN” (Daily Express, July 24, 2025).
The Express’s bold blurb for the article: “China has had it easy on the world stage, but a key appointment could be about to pose serious challenges to the totalitarian state.”
The fate of the world rests, then, on whether Waltz’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is confirmed.
The acting U.S. ambassador to the UN is a holdover from the Biden administration. The nomination of a previous Trump pick for the job, Elise Stefanik, was withdrawn in late March for the sake of preserving the GOP’s narrow majority in the U.S. House. The résumé of Trump’s current nominee, Waltz (shown above with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth), includes a brief tenure as national security advisor that imploded because of Waltz’s carelessness with internal communications.
Postwar global order
Azzem Ibrahim’s first sentence is not the best: “The United Nations was once the centrepiece of a postwar global order built on liberty, democracy, and the rule of law.” I did not know that there was once a postwar global order built on liberty, democracy, and the rule of law.
The next sentences are better, except why do we have the words “risks becoming a stage” rather than “has long been a stage”? “Today, [the United Nations] risks becoming a stage for authoritarian regimes to legitimise their ambitions. No country has been more effective at subverting the system from within than China.”
China uses its United Front strategy to co-opt civil society, think tanks, and media while wielding economic coercion to silence critics.
Countries that challenge Beijing are cut off from investment or punished with tariffs. Those that comply are rewarded. This strategy is now playing out across global institutions. This is the system that Congressman Mike Waltz has pledged to challenge. In his confirmation hearing, he stated: “The infiltration of the UN by authoritarian regimes, particularly China, is not a conspiracy, it is a fact. And we must treat it as such.”…
Mike Waltz is not just America’s best choice for the UN, he is the best hope for all of us who want to see a free and democratic global order survive the rising tide of authoritarianism. His appointment would send a powerful signal: that the West has woken up to the threat of institutional capture and will no longer stand idly by.
Waltz on China
In Congress, America’s best choice for the UN worked to reduce dependence on China for critical minerals and to combat CCP espionage in American academia. During his recent confirmation hearing, Waltz said that “countering China is absolutely critical. China pushes its personnel into roles at all levels, including bodies that set international standards—aviation, telecommunications, IP. U.S. leadership is essential there and America should have a strong voice.”
Also: “We have to block and tackle Chinese influence. America must have a strong voice and, if confirmed, I’ll work with Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio to challenge this influence.”
Also: “The U.N. has ballooned to over 80 agencies with overlapping missions that waste resources and, if confirmed, I’ll push for transparency, like what we’re seeing in the Secretary-General’s UN80 reform plan calling for a 20 percent staff cut.”
It would be nice if cutting x percent of the bureaucratic bloat—assuming that this could be done—would change anything important about how the UN works.
The UN cannot be salvaged. (“What would you expect from a crime-fighting committee whose board of directors included the leading gangsters of the community?”—Ayn Rand, in 1964.) But if the organization is going to continue, and if the United States is going to continue to be a member, a U.S. ambassador to the UN who objects to its evil and corruption would be better than someone who goes with the flow.
