China, India and why Jeffrey Sachs says the US needs to make the UN great again

2026.03.21 13:20 Economist Jeffrey Sachs says China should back India’s push to have a seat on the UN Security Council. Photo: Dickson Lee China should support India’s bid for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, a prominent US economist has suggested, saying the two Asian powers could overcome historical grievances and political distrust to inject stability into the world. “China’s real interest is true, stable multipolarity,” Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs told a seminar in Beijing on Friday, urging India not to become a pawn in a US game to hold China back. “I believe that China should, after some discussion and negotiation, support India as the sixth permanent member of the Security Council,” Sachs told the gathering hosted by the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based think tank. He called for the two Asian giants to “settle the old British score and recognise that they achieve a great commonality of interests” to become two stabilisers of the whole world system. Sachs was referring to a disputed Himalayan border between the two countries, the legacy of century-old British colonial-era border agreements. The dispute has long been a source of hostility between Beijing and New Delhi, which erupted into bloodshed in the Galwan Valley six years ago. Sachs, an advocate for multilateralism and a staunch critic of US President Donald Trump’s policies, also said the United Nations should base a major operation in Beijing to transform it into a truly global body. “My practical proposal is for China to offer to host a major UN campus on sustainable development, because China’s speciality is not the war and peace issue, nor does China want to become the global peacekeeper, but to lead the sustainable development agenda just because of its industrial capacity,” he said. Asked if he had put the idea to the Chinese leadership Sachs said: “I have suggested it very informally in a number of ways to Chinese leaders, and I hope that

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