> The Atlantic - March 2006
>
> What's Left?
> Christopher Hitchens
<snip>
> Now, and thanks largely to Deng Xiaoping, China is a capitalist
> and militarist power of a high and imposing order. Its attitude to
> the exploitation of its own people is pitiless. It exerts claims on
> neighboring states as discrepant as India and Vietnam. Its UN veto
> is employed to thwart American "hegemonism" at every turn, and was
> part of the support system for Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.
One can hold Beijing responsible for a number of problems -- the exploitation of its own people above all -- but employing its UN vetoes to "thwart American 'hegemonism' at every turn" is not one of them. Between the founding of the United Nations and the end of April 2004, Beijing voted No four times: 25 February 1999 (about the situation in Macedonia); 10 January 1997 (about Central America); 25 August 1972 (about admission of new members [Bangladesh]); and 10 September 1972 (about the situation in the Middle East). One wishes that Beijing had used whatever powers at its disposal to block American hegemonism at least a little more frequently.
Before the end of the USSR, Moscow cast most vetoes (but Moscow's vetoes rapidly decreased after the mid-1960s), and after it, it has been Washington that is Mr. Veto.
See "Annex III, Negative Votes of Permanent Members at Public Meetings of the Security Council" of _Report of the Open-ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters related to the Security Council_ (NY: United Nations, 2004). Visit <http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/scvote.htm#veto> and click on the link "A/58/47."
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>