In the event you learn The Diplomat, you most likely observe Asia-Pacific affairs – and thus you most likely already know that Chinese language President Xi Jinping is because of arrive in Washington, D.C. in the present day for a much-anticipated summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
In keeping with the White Home’s itinerary, Xi will land at Andrews Air Pressure Base on September 23, the place he will likely be personally acquired by Trump himself. The subsequent day, he’ll obtain a proper welcome ceremony on the White Home, adopted by the precise summit and a state dinner. On September 25, Trump and First Girl Melania Trump will host Xi and his spouse for tea; each {couples} will then go to the Nationwide Archives, “the place they are going to view quite a lot of vital information and paperwork important to the American and Chinese language relationship all through historical past.” Then Xi and his delegation will fly residence.
What’s most outstanding about this itinerary is what it doesn’t embody: a cease in New York, the place the United Nations’ Normal Meeting is at the moment holding its 81st session. Heads of state and authorities from world wide are making the journey to New York only for the UNGA, together with high leaders from Bangladesh, Japan, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Mongolia, South Korea, and Vietnam, simply to call just a few from The Diplomat’s protection area.
In the meantime, Xi is making a visit throughout the Pacific Ocean and all the continental U.S. and never bothering to take an additional jaunt up the coast to attend the United Nations’ most vital annual occasion.
As an alternative, Vice President Han Zheng will likely be in New York from September 24 to 26 to symbolize China on the UNGA. In keeping with China’s Overseas Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, “On the sidelines of the final debate, Vice President Han will attend the Excessive-Stage Dialogue on the Fifth Anniversary of the World Growth Initiative hosted by China, and meet with [the] U.N. secretary-general, president of the 81st UNGA session, and leaders of related international locations.”
Apparently, these are conferences Xi couldn’t be bothered to attend himself, regardless of being simply an hour’s aircraft journey away.
Xi’s absence from the UNGA would appear to undermine China’s constant rhetorical emphasis on the United Nations’ significance. China’s white paper on world governance, launched in June 2026, repeatedly emphasised the U.N. because the “core” of the worldwide order. “The United Nations is the first platform for training multilateralism and advancing world governance,” the white paper declared. “Its main place should be upheld and stay rock stable; its function can solely be bolstered, not weakened.”
In the identical press convention the place Guo introduced Han’s journey, the spokesperson repeated an analogous line: “The United Nations is the core platform for world governance, and the final debate of UNGA is an important alternative for international locations to construct political consensus and coordinate multilateral actions.” But when the United Nations, and the UNGA, are so vital, why can’t Xi be bothered to attend?
Xi has gone to the UNGA simply as soon as since turning into China’s high chief in late 2012. He went in 2015, to commemorate the United Nations’ seventieth anniversary, and addressed the UNGA in individual for the primary and solely time.
Notably, this coincided with Xi’s final state go to to the US, when he included attendance on the UNGA inside a broader itinerary that noticed him additionally maintain a summit with then-U.S. President Barack Obama. That makes the choice to not do the identical factor in 2026 all of the extra notable.
In 2021, Xi gave a video deal with to the UNGA, by which he introduced China’s World Growth Initiative. He has not delivered a speech earlier than the UNGA since.
Maybe most notably, Xi selected to skip final yr’s UNGA – the eightieth session. China places a lot inventory in these round-number anniversaries, pegging journeys overseas and main upgrades in bilateral relations to particular dates. Keep in mind that Xi took the time to attend the United Nations’ seventieth anniversary in individual. That wasn’t an aberration – China’s high chief had attended each decennial anniversary of the U.N. since Jiang Zemin in 1995. That made Xi’s absence from the eightieth anniversary in 2025 all of the extra conspicuous.
As I wrote on the time:
As an alternative [of attending the UNGA], Xi stayed in China, the place he “prolonged festive greetings” for the farmers’ harvest celebration and visited Urumqi to mark the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Area.
These occasions have been duly splashed throughout the front-page headlines of Folks’s Every day, the official newspaper of the Chinese language Communist Celebration. Premier Li Qiang’s presence at UNGA acquired only a one-line point out on the entrance web page for September 24.
Xi has additionally stopped asserting China’s main world initiatives on the United Nations. He unveiled the World Growth Initiative on the UNGA again in 2021, albeit in a digital speech. However in 2025, Xi selected to announce the brand new World Governance Initiative – much more straight associated to the United Nations’ mission – on the Shanghai Cooperation Group (SCO) summit held in China a month earlier than the UNGA.
Equally, China based its personal World Synthetic Intelligence Cooperation Group (WAICO) – “an impartial intergovernmental worldwide group that… goals to advertise worldwide cooperation and world governance on synthetic intelligence” – reasonably than working throughout the United Nations to legitimize its efforts towards the identical ends. China introduced WAICO at its personal AI convention, reasonably than on the U.N. World Dialogue on AI Governance held a month earlier.
In the meantime, as Trump reduces U.S. funding for the United Nations, China hasn’t stepped as much as fill the hole. Its personal U.N.-assessed contributions have been chronically late and stay a mere fraction of what the US was contributing previous to Trump taking workplace.
Regardless of the lip service China pays to the United Nations’ “core function” in world governance, Beijing clearly prefers to offer consideration, cash, and status to settings the place it exerts extra management. That features China-led teams just like the SCO, but additionally purely bilateral conferences just like the summit with Trump.
Nikkei Asia theorized that Xi’s determination to skip the UNGA was an try to place China as a real equal to the US – a message that apparently would have been diluted by Xi rubbing elbows with leaders from smaller states in New York. That in itself is telling. For all China’s rhetoric a few multipolar world the place all states have equal illustration – and equal say – in world governance, when push involves shove Beijing defaults to a special perspective.
As China’s high diplomat put it, pretty undiplomatically, in a heated ASEAN assembly again in 2010: “China is a giant nation and different international locations are small international locations, and that’s only a reality.” One of many perks of being a “large nation,” as Trump has repeatedly proven, is the privilege of ignoring the United Nations to pursue nationwide pursuits in different settings.
