The United Nations General Assembly, currently gathering virtually in New York, celebrates the 75th anniversary of the U.N. this year. The meeting comes amid an unprecedented global health emergency and accelerating environmental crises as well as rising tensions among great powers. It also comes as China carries out genocide in Xinjiang, topples a democracy in Hong Kong, and projects technology-enabled authoritarianism globally.
The number is less neat, but this fall also marks the 49th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China being admitted to the U.N. and the expulsion of the Republic of China, more commonly known as Taiwan. In that time, the PRC has gone from a desperately poor country without a system for measuring GDP to the second-largest economy in the world (by some measures, in fact, the largest); from the throes of the Cultural Revolution to success achieving its first centennial goal of creating “a moderately prosperous society”; from an insignificant force at the U.N. to the leader of 4 times as many U.N. specialized agencies as any other country.
