Is it time for China to consider hosting a major UN office, World Bank and IMF headquarters?
Eighty years after the UN and Bretton Woods institutions were founded, the order they built is under strain. Some experts say it’s time for a change.
As Asia continues to drive global growth and China edges closer to becoming the world’s largest economy, long-standing global institutions are coming under renewed scrutiny.
Calls are growing to rebalance influence at the United Nations, and even at the Bretton Woods institutions — the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank — whose headquarters have remained in Washington since 1945.
The global governance bodies were created after the end of World War II to rebuild battered economies and ensure that a similar outbreak of fighting doesn’t recur.
“I would urge China to establish a major UN campus in Beijing or Shanghai,” American economist Jeffrey Sachs told TRT World, reiterating an appeal he made at the sidelines of the recent UN General Assembly.
“The United States now accounts for far less in global output, while China’s economy is already larger in purchasing power terms,” he pointed out, arguing that the UN, IMF, and World Bank must evolve to reflect today’s balance of power.
“This is no longer a US- or Western-dominated world. The BRICS nations collectively produce more than the G7, and they deserve a stronger voice and a central role in shaping the rules. The era of the US setting the rules alone is over,” asserted Sachs.
“We need to make the UN truly multilateral,” he reasoned. “That means creating multiple global campuses, not concentrating the institution in the US and Western Europe.”
For decades, the US — which hosts the UN headquarters in New York and the IMF and World Bank in Washington, DC — has loomed large over global affairs. The dollar has become the backbone of international finance, and also a tool for Washington to impose sanctions on other countries.
Fast-forward to 2025: A rising China
The 80th session of the UN General Assembly in New York – held from September 9 to 29, 2025 – revealed a world in flux: fierce debates over reforming multilateral institutions, urgent warnings about climate change and energy transition, louder demands from the Global South for fairer representation, and US–China tensions overshadowing trade and security discussions.
The UNGA session offered a snapshot of the tectonic shifts — geopolitical, economic, and institutional — that will shape the decades ahead. While US President Donald Trump used his address to criticise the UN for failing to uphold global peace, Beijing struck a starkly different note, affirming that in turbulent times the world needs the UN’s authority more than ever.
For many, this contrast epitomised the shifting balance between Washington and Beijing. This contest is not merely political or diplomatic. It is underpinned by economic realities.
Leading Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs and former senior IMF officials project that Beijing could surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy in nominal GDP by 2035.
In purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, China overtook the US in 2014, with its current GDP estimated at $40.72 trillion compared to America’s $30.51 trillion, according to IMF’s latest data.
Asia as a whole now generates 55 percent of global GDP, eclipsing the combined weight of the US and EU, whose share has dropped to 33 percent. In 2025, China accounted for 19.8 percent of global GDP (PPP), while the US contributed 12.7 percent and India 10 percent, according to World Economic Research.
The United Nations headquarters is in New York City, with major offices in Geneva, Vienna, and The Hague. The UN Office at Nairobi (UNON) in Kenya is the only significant UN presence outside the Western world.
“It would be fitting to see a major UN office in China,” said Josef Gregory Mahoney, Professor of Politics at East China Normal University in Shanghai.
“Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Hainan could offer more practical advantages than Beijing, which faces space and congestion constraints,” he added.
Swaran Singh, Professor of International Relations at New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, echoed the potential for China to take on a larger governance role. “The political vacuum created by the US retreat from its global leadership is bound to be filled,” he said.
“It may not be Chinese alone replacing the US leadership… several nations together will fill that vacuum, with China playing a relatively bigger role, in tune with other major stakeholders like the Global South.”
China is building multilateral infrastructure
China has already laid significant groundwork. Beyond economic clout, it has constructed new governance frameworks through multilateral institutions such as BRICS, the New Development Bank (NDB), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and its proposed development bank, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
Earlier this year, Beijing also moved into the domain of international law and dispute resolution. In May, it launched the International Organisation for Mediation (IOMed) in Hong Kong — a new body that Chinese officials say could eventually stand alongside, or even rival, the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
These initiatives position China at the heart of global development and financial governance, complementing existing Western-led structures, while the launch of IOMed signals its ambition to extend influence into global conflict resolution.
Jian Gao, Professor at Shanghai International Studies University, emphasised China’s pragmatic dual approach. “China’s simultaneous support for established institutions like the UN and WTO while creating new ones like AIIB and BRICS indicates a pragmatic and evolving long-term strategy in global governance. This dual approach suggests China does not seek to replace the existing order but rather to complement and improve it,” he said.
The future of Bretton Woods institutions
What of the IMF and World Bank, whose headquarters have remained in Washington since 1945? Both institutions’ founding charters contain an overlooked clause: their headquarters should, in principle, be located in the country with the largest quota or subscription, according to their Articles of Agreement.
For 80 years, the United States has been the largest financial contributor to both institutions, committing around $155 billion to the IMF and about $57 billion to International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the lending arm of the World Bank. This gives Washington roughly 16.5 percent of IMF voting power and over 16 percent in the World Bank — enough to effectively veto major decisions, which require an 85 percent majority.
By contrast, China holds only 6.1 percent of IMF quotas and around 5.8 percent of World Bank voting power, despite accounting for nearly a fifth of global GDP (and more than 18 percent by purchasing power parity). Other emerging economies, such as India and Brazil, are similarly underrepresented.
As Asia now generates more than half of global output, these imbalances increasingly appear anachronistic — relics of a postwar order that no longer reflects today’s economic realities, according to analysts.
With China’s imminent rise as the world’s undisputed top economy within a decade, the question is no longer if Beijing will seek greater representation, but how far that demand could go.
As Mahoney noted, “If China becomes the world’s largest economy, it will be increasingly difficult to justify a structure where it has only a fraction of the influence it deserves. Sooner or later, the governance of these institutions will have to evolve — and that includes where they are based.”