Wang Yi warns United Nations the UN Charter faces seven urgent threats, urges prevention and reform

Wang Yi, minister of foreign affairs of the People's Republic of China, told the United Nations that the UN Charter is "a survival guide for humanity" and warned that its purposes and principles are under "profound strain." He listed seven immediate threats — erosion of respect for international law, deepening geopolitical divisions, proliferating conflicts, an accelerating arms race, attacks on human rights, pressures on peace and development, and the climate crisis — and urged member states to summon the political will to uphold the charter.

Wang said the first threat is a "dangerous erosion of respect for international law," naming core principles such as sovereign equality, territorial integrity and the prohibition on the threat or use of force and warning that violations are going unanswered. "Violations go unanswered, and impunity is spreading," he said.

He described a second threat of deepening geopolitical divisions and growing mistrust that make consensus harder to achieve, and said the Security Council often fails to act "with unity and purpose." On the third threat, Wang said conflicts are proliferating and intensifying: "We now face the highest number of conflicts since the founding of the United Nations," and he criticized external interference, including the provision of weapons such as drones that "now frequently target civilians and civilian objects." He specifically referenced recent strikes affecting Kyiv and the city of Starobilsk and noted an attack on a college building and dormitory that the speaker said was condemned.

Wang warned of "an accelerating and destabilizing arms race," noting record global military spending and rapidly advancing technologies, including artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons, that he said are outpacing governance. On human rights, he said rights are "under full scale attack," listing civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights as being pushed back in many places.

He linked peace and development as mutually dependent, saying many developing countries face widening inequality, heavy debt burdens and insufficient financing for sustainable development goals. He identified the climate crisis as a seventh threat and called it "a driver of instability, a multiplier of threats, and an increasing source of tension within and between nations."

To respond, Wang urged action across three fronts. First, he called for greater investment in prevention and peacemaking — supporting national peacebuilding, addressing root causes such as inequality and weak institutions, and using negotiation, mediation, arbitration, inquiry and the good offices of organizations in good faith. Second, he said international human rights law and humanitarian law must be upheld consistently and without selectivity, and that accountability should follow violations. He also called for institutional reform, saying global institutions must reflect today’s realities and singled out the absence of permanent representation for Africa on the Security Council as an "historic injustice." Wang said broader reforms should include reviewing peace operations for future readiness, better coordination with regional organizations, inclusion of women, youth and marginalized groups, reform of international financial architecture, and cooperation on governing emerging challenges including AI; he referenced work through the "UNIT initiative" to improve UN effectiveness.

Wang closed by quoting the charter’s prohibition on the threat or use of force and reiterated that "no reform, institutional or structural, can substitute for political will."