Asian Figures: Ban Ki-moon, the Most Incompetent UN Secretary General in History

 Wen Xiong Lingdiao 

    In 2003, when the United States declared a localized war against Iraq, the major media complained bitterly about the weakness and incompetence of the United Nations. Today, the Middle East is a quagmire of chaos, smoke, countless refugees homeless, people can no longer recall that there is an organization to maintain international peace in the world; whether you still remember, the humanities version of the language book had an article "a child's voice from China", read the whole text, teachers and students are all the great United Nations in awe of the noble father of the talented feel sorry for. The United Nations is the only organization that has ever been able to do this. But today, a search on the Internet for the keywords "United Nations, peacekeeping forces" is full of scandals. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, only2016Between the beginning of the year and May, the world has44Cases of sexual assaults against United Nations peacekeeping forces (1)2015Total for the year69(Rise). How is it that the noble heroes who once boasted world peace as their duty have now been reduced to demons who take advantage of others. And when did this mind-boggling descent begin?

The most incompetent Secretary-General in history

    In the Chinese mindset, being a civil servant is an honor for the whole family. But this Korean from Chungcheongbuk-do not only became a civil servant, but also the world's top civil servant, his name is Ban Ki-moon.

    When Ban Ki-moon was in elementary school, he had three nicknames. One was because of his excellent grades, he often helped his classmates with their homework, and was called "Mr. Ban" by his classmates, a nickname that seemed honorable and acceptable to any child. The other two are embarrassing: as a child, Ban had a mole on the bridge of his nose, and some people called him "The Fly", but Ban did not get angry and was happy to accept it. There are also students said: Buddha also has a mole on his face, jokingly called "Buddha", Ban Ki-moon laughed it off. The prime minister's belly can hold the boat, I think it is because Ban Ki-moon is so generous to have his future big business. However, this story also reflects that Ban Ki-moon is weak and lacks personality. Perhaps the nightmare of the United Nations began the day Ban Ki-moon, with such a character, was elected Secretary-General.

    There's no denying that Ban Ki-moon's grades have always been excellent, and the positive stories about his childhood revolve around learning how to work hard.1970In 2007, Ban Ki-moon received a bachelor's degree in international relations from Seoul National University, followed by a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, as well as numerous honorary doctorates. The scholarly UN Secretary General is fluent in several foreign languages and has studied the history of calligraphy in depth. However, as a leader, it is more important to have personal charisma and ability to deal with people, compared to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, many people joke that Ban Ki-moon is more suitable to go to educational institutions as a spokesman.

    During his decade-long tenure, Ban Ki-moon's disappointing record has been characterized by the Western media as the "transparent man" of the United Nations. To this day, Ban remains as "humble and low-profile" as he was as a child, and lacks the personal charisma of previous Secretaries-General. He has remained silent in the face of the cruelty of dictators. It is understandable that, given the complexity of the international situation, Ban has been unable to address certain issues. But in his own jurisdiction, the lack of leadership has led to the repeated condoning of various violent sexual abuse scandals by his peacekeeping forces. In just the past two years, hundreds of sexual assault scandals have broken out around the world, and there have even been revelations of vicious incidents in which peacekeeping troops forced female refugees to have sex with dogs. We can no longer tell whether the upcoming United Nations "soldiers" are heroes or devils.

    "This will destroy the UN!" In Mr. Chance: the UN debacle during Ban Ki-moon's tenure (Mr Chance-the UN's decay under Ban Ki-moonIn her book, Inga, who was the number three person at the United Nations and the head of internal audit at the United Nations, reviews the history of the United Nations and the challenges and difficulties it has faced, and she sharply points out that Ban Ki-moon is a seriously flawed leader of the United Nations, whose incompetence and dereliction of duty have harmed the cause of the United Nations and threatened the future of the organization.

    Since this incompetent Secretary-General took office, the international image of the United Nations has plummeted to the bottom, with internal mediocrity, corruption and bureaucracy prevailing, and external malignant incidents involving peacekeepers frequently breaking out. As a result, wars have broken out all over the world and people have gradually forgotten that there is such an organization as the United Nations. Indeed, as a great power with a strong military force, we can laugh about the United Nations is just an international mascot ornament. But those who are in the chaos of war, the helpless poor people are very hopeful that there is a real organization in the world can take them to escape from the fire, and live a life where they don't have to worry about bullets and bombings every day; there are still many small and weak countries in the world, looking forward to a fair and just, independent and powerful transnational organization that can come out to preside over fairness and justice.

    What has that once great organization, whose mission was to protect world peace, to help peoples, to improve the lives of the poor, to fight for human rights and justice, done in the past two years except to complain about the arrears of States and to allow its troops to carry out their evil deeds in various countries of the world? What has Ban Ki-moon accomplished on Burma, Sri Lanka, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, the North Korean nuclear issue, Syria in the Middle East, and on so many other issues?

    At the same time, during his tenure, Ban Ki-moon's "efforts" on the two most crucial issues for the United Nations: the climate talks and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) program have all come to naught. Regarding the climate talks, many Western media have pointed out that "Ban Ki-moon always tries to take care of the sentiments of the big powers, but has not achieved any substantive help for the talks." During the12At the Copenhagen Climate Conference, which took place on January 1, 2010, the lack of Ban Ki-moon's executive and decisive capacity ultimately prevented the Conference from reaching a binding agreement. Since then, the climate talks have descended into a purely step-by-step discussion without any substantive progress.

    In addition, the2000Year, by the World189The Millennium Declaration, which was signed and adopted by the representatives of three countries, aims to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the end of 2012.2015Poverty reduction, women's rights, universal education, etc., completed by 20158and the completion of the work with the1990The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are still a hundred thousand miles short of the desired goal of halving the proportion of the MDGs by 2015, in terms of the actual situation.

    It is not only on major issues that Ban Ki-moon has been unable to do anything. He also lacks strategic direction and leadership within the UN. The head of the UN's Internal Affairs Oversight Service, Swedish diplomat Ahlenius, also accused Ban of reacting to his presence in the promotion of senior officials."Nationality discrimination"and deprived her of the personnel authority that belonged to her, acting arbitrarily and destroying the rules governing the functioning of the United Nations bodies that she herself had advocated. At that time The Washington Post, for one, said that Ban Ki-moon was a nepotist who favored the appointment of South Koreans, and that after only one year in office he had promoted66The presence of a Korean at the UN headquarters is in stark contrast to the likes of former UN Secretary General de Cuellar (Peruvian de Cuellar employed only one fellow countryman during his tenure).

    It is not an exaggeration to say that Ban Ki-moon is the most incompetent Secretary-General of the United Nations. During his tenure, the Iranian nuclear issue; the North Korean nuclear issue have not been fundamentally resolved; conflicts have erupted in various parts of the world, from the07The Lebanese civil war that started in 2007 began with no end in sight across the country, and his reign has seen civil wars in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and several other happy nations, and the incompetent Ban Ki-moon has essentially turned in a blank check when it comes to resolving these problematic conflicts.

    What is even more disgraceful is that the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, who has retired from his post, had to come out in person to mediate the war in Syria on behalf of Ban Ki-moon. Thanks to Annan's many years of experience in successfully mediating wars, the international community widely chose to bypass Ban Ki-moon and recognize former Secretary-General Annan as the Joint Special Envoy to mediate the war in Syria, and the armed conflict in various parts of Syria cooled down significantly during the period of Annan's appointment as the Special Envoy.

    Ban Ki-moon is the second Secretary-General from Asia, the first being U Thant from Myanmar. During his tenure, U Thant was a beloved figure on the international stage for his creation of various institutions and his success in mediating international conflicts and stopping wars. And interestingly enough, Ban Ki-moon's tenure wasn't uneventful; he did make a name for himself."Leaders with the most handshakes"In addition to the title, the secretary-general, who is a schoolteacher, has also expressed his interest in the"Doctor Honoris Causae"Surprisingly eager, he was awarded honorary doctorates from various top schools around the world during his reign.

    A number of books have been written in Asia in praise of this reader"child prodigy"How a pig-farming country boy transforms himself into an honorary doctorate and head of the world's civil servants. I think this plot would make for a good movie, but the reality is that this inspirational man who is obsessed with his studies has made a lot of embarrassing mistakes at the United Nations.

    To quote an excerpt from the book Mr. Chance, the former head of audit at the United Nations recalled that, on one occasion, Ban Ki-moon returned to New York from a crisis area in Asia to tell senior advisers about his"travel"Experience. The senior staff were dumbfounded that Ban Ki-moon did not talk about the crisis in the region and its aftermath, but rather about how the local children had laid flowers on him, the dinners and receptions to which he was invited, and how the media had reported on his whereabouts.

    Former Auditor General Inga went on to comment that when Ban Ki-moon recounted his travels, he looked as excited as a sixth-grader returning from his first trip abroad. Colleagues were frustrated because the South Korean had no idea how to handle a crisis and was more interested in traveling the world for glory and stepping onto the red carpet as if welcoming a head of state.

    As a United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon has reached a level of incompetence. According to senior officials within the United Nations, the Secretary-General lacks knowledge of the geography of Africa and the Middle East, of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and of the history and reality of conflicts in those regions, and often even raises common sense questions that are difficult to understand.

How does an incompetent Secretary-General get elected and re-elected?

    Perhaps the greatest personal achievement of Ban Ki-moon's life was his successful election as Secretary-General of the United Nations and his miraculous re-election. Why did Ban Ki-moon remain in office for five years despite his "inaction"? This can only be attributed to the combination of good timing and Ban Ki-moon's superb personal skill in "seeing the wind and steering the ship".

    Ban Ki-moon's election was a sign of the times: there is an unwritten rule at the United Nations that, to avoid suspicion, secretaries-general are not elected from among the five permanent members and are elected in turn from among member States from all five continents.2006It is fitting that the Secretary-General's throne has this time drifted to Asia. In the Asian region as a whole, it would be in the interest of all countries if the Secretary-General of the United Nations were to come from a less contentious country. For example, if the Secretary-General of the United Nations comes from Japan, the Secretary-General will be able to deal with the Sino-Japanese Diaoyu Islands issue in a controversial public opinion session. The controversy is small, but also need to have a certain appeal of the country, look at Asia is only South Korea is the most suitable. At the same time, the North Korean issue was an acute problem, and it so happened that one of the candidates had a good track record, had many years of professional diplomatic experience and had participated in the six-party peace talks, so Ban was undoubtedly the best candidate at that time.

    In the early days of Ban Ki-moon's tenure, media outlets in various countries published positive reports about Ban's aspirations, and there were great expectations for him to address the situation on the Korean Peninsula, the climate, and many other aspects. But it didn't take long before Ban's overly pro-U.S. behavior threw everyone for a loop. One report even summarized that Ban's foreign statements with the U.S. side were not even half bad. According to one diplomat from Africa, you can probably think of him as someone who only says "yes" to the United States.

    Of course, Ban Ki-moon is not just "clinging" to one force. In dealing with the Taiwan issue, Ban Ki-moon has strongly supported China and maintained the statement that "Taiwan is a part of China" with China. But when the U.S. showed signs of displeasure, he hastened to say that "the remarks were slightly inappropriate".

    Ban Ki-moon's smooth way of dealing with the five powers without offending each other set the stage for his subsequent reelection. In the second phase of the election of Ban Ki-moon's career as secretary-general, an unprecedented situation in the United Nations has occurred, with the normal conduct of the intentional voting, constantly another candidate withdrew from the race, until the fourth round of voting, from Sri Lanka's Dhanapala, Jordan's Zayed, Afghanistan's Ghani, India's Tharoor, Latvia's Viktoria-Freiberga, and Thailand's Surakiart had already all announced their withdrawal from the race. It can be said that for Ban Ki-moon, this is undoubtedly an uncontested election.

    "Ban Ki-moon has all the timing, location and people, so it must be him." Zhang Liangui, a professor at the Institute of International Strategy at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and a special researcher on Asian and African development at the Development Research Center of the State Council, analyzed.

    Rather than being elected at the right time and place, Ban Ki-moon's natural attribute of being "harmless" has endeared him to the permanent five. It should be noted that no Secretary-General in history has ever been so subservient to the P5. (Previously, Secretary-General Annan repeatedly complained about the United States' attitude towards the P5. (There was Secretary-General Annan, who repeatedly complained that the United States was waging war against Iraq, and there was Halshaw, who set up the first peacekeeping force and was hated by the Soviet Union for insisting on the independence of the United Nations and defying the might of the powerful.)

    It is worth mentioning that on the very day Ban Ki-moon announced that he would seek re-election, China, the United States, Britain and France showed their solidarity, and Russia, although it had some dissatisfaction with the practice of the United Nations, still openly expressed its support for Ban Ki-moon's seeking of re-election in the media later on. With the full support of the P5, Ban Ki-moon has actually won a big half. During the election period, did the candidates drop out of the race because of the firm attitude of the P5 in supporting Ban Ki-moon's rise to power? Was it really a "right place, right time" accident for Ban Ki-moon to drop out of the race?

The negative impact of Ban Ki-moon on the United Nations and on world peace

    Putting aside one's national feelings, it would be a great disaster for the world if every Secretary-General were as mediocre and incompetent as Ban Ki-moon. More than 70 years ago, the United Nations was founded for world peace, democracy and human rights, freedom and equity. It is only through the struggle of countless great pacifists who have defied power that it has become what it is today. However, during the 10 years that Ban has been in office, the United Nations has become more and more transparent, its voice has become smaller and smaller, and it has lost more and more of its original luster and even its dignity. For Ban, perhaps, he has long since forgotten all about the idea of serving the world and has become a servant of the Big Five, as the netizens call them.

    What makes countless United Nations colleagues feel ashamed is not only that Ban Ki-moon's leadership has gone far beyond the original purpose of the United Nations and has been reduced to a private organization that serves the five major Member States led by the United States. Because of the incompetence of his leadership, some issues that should be the responsibility of the United Nations have been shifted to the problematic regions and negotiated by some countries in private groups.

    "Cowardice, mediocrity, lack of charisma, lack of decisiveness, lack of dedication." These are the words usually used by the Western media to report on the old man who handed in his "blank answer sheet" empty-handed and still smiled gracefully.

There is an old Chinese saying that it is a fault if an official does not do something. Even if this "old man with a white paper" has never done anything harmful to the world, he has allowed his men to tarnish the reputation of the United Nations, turned a blind eye to internal corruption, and delayed reforms again and again, which undoubtedly have pushed the United Nations to the brink of extinction. Ban Ki-moon's mediocrity and incompetence has deprived the people of the world of their trust in the world's common goodwill and beautiful vision, and has also deprived the United Nations, which is the voice of justice, of its credibility and of the people's expectation of a just and peaceful world. As an inept official, Ban Ki-moon is no less harmful to the world than corruption and mediocrity!