NEW YORK – One day after Chinese President Xi Jinping met with President Donald Trump in Washington, Vice President Han Zheng delivered Beijing’s familiar message to the United Nations. His address focused on development, offered restrained comments on the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, AI and trade protectionism, and notably avoided any direct reference to Taiwan.
Han’s speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday struggled to command attention after Xi’s high-profile state dinner with Trump and a visit to the National Archives. Still, Han’s appearance carried its own significance. Beijing has frequently used prominent international events to introduce and elevate senior figures viewed as part of China’s next generation of leadership.
“China has created two miracles at home, namely fast economic roles and long-term social stability,” Han said.
His sharpest criticism was reserved for protectionism. China and the United States have spent more than a year locked in a tariff dispute, although tensions have eased somewhat as the Trump administration postponed certain measures, legal challenges continued and Trump adopted a less confrontational tone toward Xi.
“Both history and reality prove that countries can hardly achieve development without an open and cooperative international environment,” Han said. “Protectionism produces no winners.”
The omission of Taiwan stood out because the island is regularly mentioned in China’s U.N. addresses. The silence was especially notable amid continuing U.S.-China tensions over Taiwan’s political future and defense. Beijing claims the self-governing island as part of China.
Development positioned as the most important principle
In keeping with China’s traditional messaging, Han placed development at the center of the global agenda. He argued that international systems should be designed to improve living standards worldwide and repeated Beijing’s longstanding position that economic progress can help preserve peace.
Han also highlighted the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s signature international development and infrastructure program of the past decade. The effort has expanded Beijing’s influence and soft power while financing projects across dozens of countries. Han said China has cooperated with three-quarters of the world’s nations through Belt and Road projects.
China routinely presents multilateralism as essential to global stability, even as its own foreign policy has not always reflected that principle. Beijing’s insistence that other countries avoid interference in its internal affairs is rooted in a longstanding effort to protect distant and strategically important regions. That outlook, often linked to the defensive logic behind the Great Wall, continues to shape China’s approach to Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Han echoed that position during Saturday’s address.
“Multilateralism is a choice made by humanity after going through scourges,” he said. Han called for disputes to be resolved through dialogue and consultation, while opposing unilateral military action that violates the U.N. Charter or bypasses authorization from the Security Council.
On Iran, where the United States and Israel have been at war since earlier this year, Han offered a carefully worded position: “China holds that the sovereignty and security of countries in the Middle East, including the Gulf, should be respected.”
He also urged the international community to protect the postwar global order, while calling on nations to reject a Cold War mentality and prevent further confrontation—two positions that appeared to pull in different directions.
Another theme was the empowerment of the Global South, a broad term for emerging and economically disadvantaged countries, many of them in the Southern Hemisphere. China and India are among the larger powers that have increasingly sought to present themselves as leaders of that group.
Han’s presence has meaning, but perhaps not a lot of it
With Xi in the United States that week, television commentators spent considerable time asking why the Chinese president was not addressing the U.N. General Assembly. But Xi’s absence was not especially unusual—and his meetings in Washington were arguably more important to Beijing’s immediate priorities.
Wang Zichen, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, said there is no established rule requiring China’s president to attend the General Assembly. Former leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao appeared at major U.N. gatherings only on selected occasions, while Xi last addressed the body virtually in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic.
China was represented by Premier Li Qiang at last year’s session. Senior diplomat Wang Yi has also addressed the U.N. several times in recent years in different roles; this year, he accompanied Xi during the Washington visit. Han himself spoke to the assembly in 2023.
“Both the premier and the vice president are sufficiently senior representatives that I would be cautious about interpreting the choice between them as a diplomatic signal in itself,” Wang Zichen said.
He added that China portrays the U.N. as an important global institution, so “it would be difficult to argue from the level of representation alone that China is becoming less interested in the U.N.”
Unlike Li’s 2025 speech, which ventured into some personal observations about arriving in New York, Han played it straight. The closest he came to being flowery was in the context of multilateralism, and he quickly pivoted back to diplomatic language.
“Diversity has created splendor in the world,” he said. “Condescension and the self-centered mindset have no place in the interactions among different cultures. Promoting mutual trust, mutual respect, solidarity and harmonious coexistence is the right approach to take.”
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Associated Press writer E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing contributed to this report.
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