US China Feud Breaks Out at UN

By: Stefano Gennarini, J.D., originally published August 29, 2025, C-Fam.org

UNITED NATIONS, August 29 (C-Fam) In rhetoric similar to his pro-abortion domestic opponents, a Chinese Ambassador at the UN attacked President Trump’s pro-life policies and accused the U.S. government of denying women abortion and contraception.

“The U.S. government brutally denies U.S. women access to reproductive health care”, Ambassador Sun Lei said this week during a meeting of the Executive Board of the UN population agency (UNFPA). This he claimed was part “widespread systematic violations of women and children’s rights” in the United States.

The U.S. had challenged millions of dollars of United Nations programming in China, including funding by UNFPA for Chinese population control programs. At the meeting, the U.S. voted against continuing any UN programs in China.

“China is the world’s second largest economy. A country that can fund its own space program and build aircraft carriers should fund its own development,” a U.S. delegate said. “Every UNDP dollar spent in China is one less for countries that truly depend on that funding.”

He said that continuing UN programs in China amounted to “subsidizing one country’s geopolitical agenda” under the pretense of multilateral aid. “The UN was formed to support the vulnerable, not underwrite geopolitical ambitions of a major power,” he concluded.

The U.S. government also accused China of human rights violations through population control. “The U.S. stands for the rights of the individual, rights that the Chinese government utterly disregards,” a U.S. delegate said.

“China’s coercive family planning policies are antithetical to America’s promotion of individual liberty,” he said. “Millions of families have suffered under China’s destructive approach to population. Generations of women continue to suffer the harm of this excruciating legacy which included barbaric forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.”

China’s ongoing population control program is the reason the U.S. government withdrew funding from the UN population agency earlier this year.

“The U.S. remains prohibited from funding any organization that supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization,” the U.S. delegate said. The U.S. ceased funding the agency because of “the UNFPA’s previous legitimation of this effort and their continued partnership with a Chinese government entity that implements abhorrent population control policies that include coercive elements,” he said.

In addition to attacking the Trump administration’s pro-life policies, Ambassador Sun Lei defended UN programs in China claiming they were “empowering women, children, and vulnerable groups, in line with the core values of the United Nations, human rights and development.”

He countered the suggestion that China was now a developed nation, no longer in need of UN assistance. “China is a natural member of the Global South family, and this position will never change,” he said, taunting the U.S. delegation by claiming that China has widespread international support because of its development cooperation.

He also tried to make that case that China is a superior development partner than the U.S. government. “China never attempted to suppress other government’s development,” he said, in what was clearly an accusation that the U.S. government has indeed attempted to do just that.

“The U.S. is in no position to lecture us or point fingers at others,” he said finally, accusing the U.S. Congress of failing to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and of allowing child marriage at the State level.

In the end, the entire UN Executive Board sided with China. Thirty-Four of the thirty-five voting members of the board voted against the U.S position. The U.S. was the sole vote against continuing UN programs in China.

Stefano Gennarini is the Vice President for Legal Studies at the Center for Family and Human Rights.

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