Siddharth Chatterjee, a former Indian military officer helms the U.N. in China

In his job, Mr. Chatterjee engages every day with senior Chinese Communist Party officials and assists China in achieving its development targets.

An Indian military officer who fought for the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka and battled insurgencies in Nagaland now finds himself helming a different kind of mission: leading the United Nations and its 26 agencies in China.

Siddharth Chatterjee’s rise to becoming the U.N. Resident Coordinator for China — one of the agency’s key global positions given Beijing’s rising importance in the UN system — leaves a former Indian soldier in an unlikely position — the equivalent of a former PLA soldier guiding the U.N.’s agencies in India.

In his job, Mr. Chatterjee engages every day with senior Chinese Communist Party officials and assists China in achieving its development targets.

In an interview, the National Defence Academy (NDA) graduate and former 10 Para special forces officer said he was himself surprised by how his military past did not matter to his Chinese hosts, either when he applied for the UN position in China or during the course of his work in the country, which happened to coincide with the worst period in India-China relations in decades following the tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

When the China vacancy came up, Mr. Chatterjee was in Kenya in 2020, and expected to continue working in Africa, where had previously also been posted in Darfur in Sudan, Somalia, and in South Sudan.

“I doubted it was possible,” he said, “but throughout the process, and in my stint here, my background has never been an issue. The Chinese have said to me, we see you as an international civil servant, and their attitude has been completely professional. Even after 25 years in the UN system, I found this to be exceptional”.

In his second year in China, Mr. Chatterjee said he has “seen first hand” the successes of China’s development experience, which he believes holds lessons for the developing world.