Editor's note: John Gong is a research fellow at Charhar Institute and professor at the University of International Business and Economics. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

China's influence at international institutions has been on the rise recently as manifested by its winning of director-general positions at several key United Nations organizations, including the UN Industrial Development Organization (IDO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITO), and more recently the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

This follows naturally from China's expanding share of the world economy and its consequent contributions to the UN. But in the eyes of some Washington politicians, this trend is nefariously framed in a Thucydides trap perspective, and according to a recent article in Foreign Policy, which is a Washington-based magazine publication, some U.S. politicians such as Kevin Moley, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, thinks "America's diplomatic corps need to do everything in its power to thwart Beijing's ambition."

The recent FAO director-general election battle between the Washington-hand-picked candidate – the former Georgian agricultural minister Davit Kirvalidze – and Beijing's candidate – Qu Dongyu, China's vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs – is a case in point.

As revealed by the Foreign Policy article, the kind of campaign strategy and political maneuvering behind supporting Kirvalidze in the election was a vivid manifestation of an anti-China mindset prevalent in Washington. U.S. diplomats were zealous in placing the Georgian candidate it backed at the head of the FAO and preventing Qu from winning the position. The Foreign Policy article said that Kevin Moley, the U.S. official responsible for overseeing this matter, made clear before the election that defeating China would be a key U.S. foreign-policy goal and Qu had to be beaten.

However, the vote came back on June 23, 2019, as a total fiasco to Washington. Qu Dongyu, who won the election overwhelmingly with 108 out of 191 votes from the organization's 194 member countries. Mr. Kirvalizdze ended up getting only 12 votes.

Understandably there has been a fair amount of reeling from this humiliating defeat on the part of some U.S. diplomats. "Everybody was just asking why, how… this happened," one U.S. official was quoted in the Foreign Policy article. "It made us look like complete fools." David Hale, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, vowed to learn the lesson as "applying to some of the other battles coming up" during a recent closed-door town hall meeting at the State Department addressing the FAO election.

It is a gross disappointment that the top brass at the U.S. State Department draws that kind of lesson. As a great and long-lasting American political tradition, Mr. Moley should have simply picked up the phone and called up Mr. Qu Dongyu to congratulate him on a well-run campaign. And he should have added by saying that the United States, as a key UN member, shall rally around the new FAO leader and fully support his appointment for FAO's continued mission to fight hunger worldwide.

Yet, people of the world have already spoken for Mr. Moley, and they have spoken loud and clear, via votes of 108 versus 12, that there is indeed something that China can contribute to the United Nations when it comes to fighting hunger. This country has been plagued by famine throughout its history as recently as the 1960s. Yet since China's economic take-off under Mr. Deng Xiaoping's reform and open-door policies, we have lifted more than 850 million people out of poverty according to the World Bank. And today President Xi sets an ambitious goal of totally eliminating absolute poverty in China by 2020. In addition to China's increasing contribution and commitment to the UN, anywhere you go in China, food on the table is no longer a concern for most households. Such an extraordinary success certainly warrants Beijing a director-general seat at the FAO.

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