China’s Year-Old UN Push Against ‘Coercive Measures’
As the UN General Assembly gathers for its 81st session, China is again expected to press its annual case against unilateral sanctions. But the most fully documented instance of that campaign remains last year’s: a joint statement at the Third Committee of the 80th UN General Assembly, delivered on October 3, 2025, in which China spoke on behalf of 28 like-minded countries and called for an end to what Beijing terms “unilateral coercive measures.”
That statement — and the broader institutional push it belongs to — framed such measures as illegal, a violation of the UN Charter, and a principal driver of international disorder. Understanding it is essential to reading whatever Beijing says at the UN this October.
The October 2025 Joint Statement
Speaking at the 80th UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, China’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Fu Cong, delivered the joint statement on behalf of 28 countries, according to a Global Times report carried by Chinese media and dated October 4, 2025. The Third Committee handles human rights and social affairs, which is why Beijing frames sanctions in human-rights terms—invoking the right to life and the right to development.
Fu stated that “unilateralism is spreading unchecked and unilateral coercive measures are running rampant,” describing them as “one of the chief culprits causing international chaos and undermining world order.” He added that with the UN marking its 80th anniversary, the international community “must stay clear-headed, strengthen solidarity and cooperation, and resolutely curb this illegal practice.”
According to the same account, Fu argued that such measures “violate the principles of sovereign equality and cooperation, interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, contravene the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and run counter to multilateralism and international law.”
He reiterated China’s opposition and called on “a small number of Western countries to heed the just voice of the international community” and to “immediately, unconditionally and completely lift unilateral coercive measures.” He also urged member states, the UN system, and other international organizations to support sanctioned countries in easing their difficulties.
An Institutionalized, Annual Campaign
The statement is not a one-off event, and it is not tied to any single news peg. China has made opposition to unilateral sanctions a fixture of its UN diplomacy, recycling the same themes annually at the Third Committee and gradually expanding its coalition of signatories—from 26 countries in 2020 to 28 by 2025.
The campaign has escalated in tone and scope. In June 2024, then-Deputy Permanent Representative Geng Shuang spoke under the UNGA agenda item on eliminating unilateral extraterritorial coercive economic measures, directly naming the United States. Geng described such measures as “the concentrated embodiment of hegemonism and power politics,” adding that a small number of countries “abuse their own power and weaponize and instrumentalize unilateral sanctions; their underlying logic is the law of the jungle where the strong prey on the weak.”
The framing has since been extended into new institutional territory. In early December 2025, the UN observed the first International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures, with China’s Deputy Permanent Representative Sun Lei speaking at the commemorative meeting. At a regular press conference on December 4, 2025, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said such measures “violate the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, undermine the foundations of multilateralism and the international rule of law, seriously infringe basic human rights such as the right to life and the right to development, and hinder global development cooperation and the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” as reported by China.com.
What “Unilateral Coercive Measures” Means
The phrase is China’s preferred term for unilateral economic sanctions, export controls, asset freezes, and secondary sanctions imposed by one country—most often the United States—without UN Security Council authorization. Beijing characterizes these as illegal and coercive.
The United States and its allies generally reject that characterization, defending sanctions as legitimate responses to human-rights abuses, aggression, or other violations of international norms. No Western government rebuttal to the 2025 Third Committee statement was reflected in the available Chinese-language coverage, which presented the framing almost entirely from the official side.
The campaign carries concrete stakes. It targets US and Western sanctions regimes affecting China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others, while also serving Beijing’s interest in protecting its own economy from technology export controls and preserving its partnerships with sanctioned states. Analysts of the Global South critique of Western hegemonism see the effort as an attempt to consolidate support among developing countries that have themselves been subject to sanctions.
What to Watch
The joint statement is a scheduled, recurring element of China’s UN diplomacy rather than a spontaneous event, and its substance has remained nearly unchanged from year to year. As the 81st UNGA session proceeds, the key variable to watch is the size and composition of the like-minded coalition: a continued expansion beyond 28 countries would signal growing traction for Beijing’s effort to normalize opposition to sanctions.
Equally important is whether the rhetorical campaign translates into institutional or legal action, and whether Western governments begin to engage publicly with the charge. For now, the dispute continues to play out primarily through competing narratives—one casting sanctions as a tool of coercion, the other as an instrument of accountability.