Behind the Beijing visits: China holds one of the five permanent seats on the UN Security Council

Background

The German and Swiss heads of State met Xi Jinping in Beijing on the same day. China's place in the United Nations system is fixed by a permanent seat on the Security Council. The United Nations Security Council has 15 members, and five of them are permanent: China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, as the Council's own page names them. Each permanent member can block a substantive decision of the Council, which is the veto. The other ten members are elected for two-year terms and have no veto. The Security Council is the only United Nations organ whose decisions member States are bound to carry out, which is what makes a permanent seat so heavy. A permanent seat is held by the State, not by a rotation, so China's presence on the Council does not depend on any election.