UN General Assembly: Meeting comes at perilous time for global order

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02:46

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, the United Nations was created. Its charter sought to "maintain international peace and security". As CGTN's Daniel Ryntjes reports this week's gathering of the U.N. General Assembly in New York comes at a perilous time for global order.

Berlin, May 1945. From the ashes of global conflict.

Harry S. Truman "If we do not want to die together in war, we must learn to live together in peace."

The United Nations was created in San Francisco the following month. Back in Berlin more than four decades later.

Ronald Reagan "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

President Reagan promoted America's brand of global capitalism.

And in 2001, China became a member of the World Trade Organization, which quickened the pace of American companies shifting manufacturing abroad.

JEFF FERRY, RESEARCH DIRECTOR COALITION FOR A PROSPEROUS AMERICA "In reality globalization in the United States and other prosperous countries has produced a huge increase in income inequality because semi-skilled and unskilled workers were forced to compete with workers in low-wage countries and their real wages went down, they lost jobs."

The period of slow recovery from the 2008 financial crisis intensified income inequality, fueling the rise of Donald Trump.

Trump Inauguration "America First! America First!"

The World Economic Forum --- for some Trump supporters --- epitomizes their perception of a self-serving "global elite". The organization's founder wants to find ways to better manage the mass job dislocations of the future.

KLAUS SCHWAB, FOUNDER & EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM "So, new technologies creating much better interconnectivity, creating better access to health services, to educational services, to knowledge. So we have to make sure that those who have been left behind are integrated into this Fourth Industrial Revolution on the national level, but also on an international level."

DANIEL RYNTJES WASHINGTON "As world leaders gather at the United Nations, questions remain. How to address this wave of popular discontent with globalization. And how to manage the leader of a nation that was for so long globalization's chief architect, and now its most ardent critic. Daniel Ryntjes, CGTN, Washington."