China is preparing to decide which of two Latin American women will become the first woman to lead the United Nations, after three rounds of informal voting in the Security Council failed to produce a preferred candidate.
Several UN delegations who spoke to the South China Morning Post over the past three days said Beijing was considering Rebecca Greenspan, the Costa Rican economist who heads trade and development at the UN, and Carolyn Rodriguez Birkett, Guyana’s ambassador to the UN.
The same delegations said that China had excluded Rafael Grossi, the Argentine director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Grossi is widely seen as Washington’s favorite candidate, and was nominated by Argentine President Javier Miley last year.
China has maintained friendly but cooler relations with Miley since his 2023 presidential campaign, when he called the Chinese government “murderers” and promised to sever ties in favor of the “civilized side of life.”
