A report published by the UK House of Commons foreign affairs committee has claimed that autocratic nations like China are seeking to manipulate, undermine, or even break up multilateral organizations, such as the WHO and Interpol.
The committee comprising of 11 MPs warned that if the UK and its allies do not respond to the corrosive influence of states including China, there is a very real risk that democratic states will lose multilateral organizations to authoritarian states.
The report said that countries like China have done little to demonstrate that they wish to uphold the values that these organizations represent. Notably, multilateral organizations like the World Trade Organisation, Interpol, the United Nations Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe were set up to establish an international system based on shared values of peace, prosperity, and freedom.
The UK committee report found that China has been increasingly using aggressive methods including bilateral economic leverage, to coerce states in multilateral organizations to back its position.
In the wake of these developments, the report recommended that the UK should work with a coalition of like-minded states to publicly call out such attempts undermining the present system.
