Ambassador Bolton has thrown his weight around in Turtle Bay, shifting U.S. negotiating positions at the last moment, communicating messages that seem out of step with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and overreacting to pinpricks such as a June speech by UN Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown (which in fact contained the kind of plain speaking the U.S. representative professes to admire). However, if anything, his ambassadorship has telegraphed American weakness. Missteps have included the recent issuing, and then withdrawal, of threats to shut down the organization over the budget, and U.S. tactics at last year's World Summit that caused Washington to receive more than its fair share of the blame for its disappointing outcome.

America's opponents are enjoying its current difficulties as much as its friends are regretting them. Supporters of the world body should not be pleased, however, because the UN works best when it works in tandem with the superpower. Furthermore, Washington's sins have hidden the frailties of other great powers' UN strategies, with China's first among them.

China's representatives are more skillful and confident these days in the way they transact their country's business in New York, but that does not mean they have internalized all the responsibilities of a global power. There are definite limits to China's Damascene conversion. Sometimes China pursues its narrowly drawn interests--energy security, for example, or the existential struggle with Taiwan--with an uncompromising resolve that would be described as amoral belligerence were it attempted by the United States. If China truly wants to be perceived as a "responsible stakeholder"--the formulation coined by former Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, which Beijing eventually clutched to its breast--then it must start to conceive of its interests in a broader way than it has in the past, and accept its duty to help nurture the international system it aspires to lead.

The Iranian nuclear program is a good example of the problem. China is a significant consumer of Iranian energy and, not coincidentally, Beijing has shielded the regime from scrutiny in international forums, initially resisting the referral of the matter to the Security Council and then attempting to neuter draft resolutions proposed by the United States, Britain and France. This seems short-sighted given what is at stake for the international community: an Iranian bomb would likely embolden a regime with links to Hizballah and other terrorist groups; endanger strategic waterways; threaten regional states (including other suppliers of energy to China); and contribute to regional and global nuclear proliferation. China surely wants to avoid the instability that would result from military action in the Gulf. The best way to minimize the chance of the use of force by the United States or Israel is for China (and its regular confrere Russia) to maximize diplomatic solidarity on the issue--as they did recently by supporting a strong Council resolution insisting that Tehran cease uranium enrichment and reprocessing by the end of August.

The horrors occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan have created a similar tension. It is hard to escape the conclusion that China provides political protection in the Council to Khartoum in return for preferential access to oil. China has consistently resisted, diluted or abstained from Council resolutions that threaten real consequences for the government of Sudan, with which Beijing has negotiated trade deals and oil industry investments.

On these issues Beijing is, of course, motivated by ideology as well as interests: namely its cast-iron attachment to the concept of state sovereignty and the norm of non-interference. However, the forces of history, including globalization and proliferation, are redefining state sovereignty. After the atrocities in Rwanda and the felling of the twin towers, not to mention the endorsement by heads of government of an international responsibility to protect individuals in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing and widespread violations of human rights, China's doctrine will need to develop further.

With the world's attentions directed toward American overreach, China has largely escaped scrutiny on these kinds of issues--but not for much longer. North Korea's nuclear program, for example, will provide an ongoing test of Chinese leadership. Beijing has good reason to be cautious about pushing Pyongyang too hard. It is loath to see a collapsed state on the Korean peninsula or to suffer American GIs on its eastern border. On the other hand, foreign capitals quite rightly want China, the DPRK's chief protector and quartermaster, to convert its influence into progress on denuclearization. Beijing's willingness to support a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning the provocative missile launches in July was, therefore, particularly promising.

China's rise will force many such difficult decisions on its leaders. An easy decision that Beijing could take to signal its bona fides would be voluntarily to increase the rather ungenerous dues it pays to the UN--currently about 2 percent of the organization's regular budget or $40 million per annum--to a level more appropriate for a country with the world's fourth largest economy and almost $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

China has won the world's respect, not just as a leader of developing countries but as a peer of the other great powers. Retaining that respect will require it to strike a new balance between its traditional interests and broader imperatives, such as stable great power relations, non-proliferation and human security.

In the conduct of its relations in New York, China is, to quote a long-time UN observer, "playing a strong hand well." Its multilateral diplomacy, notable for its intelligence and subtlety, has generated prestige and pull. But to stay competitive in the game over the long term, Beijing will need to alter its tactics once again. In the future China will be held to higher standards, akin to those demanded of the United States--because with great power comes great responsibility.

Essay Types: Essay