"The United States had emerged as a Great Power without whom anything could be achieved."

How does the United States inhibit achieving "anything"? What is the "anything" that could be achieved without the US but could not be achieved with the US?

In the Cold War, when the Soviet Block (Russia and its allies) was in constant competition with the NATO Block (US/UK and their allies), the UN proved an excellent circuit breaker. Conflicts which threatened to escalate out of control could be tossed to the UN where either side could back down or compromise, ostensibly at the behest of an imaginary ‘World Community’. Never underestimate the value of saving face. The UN may have delivered us from WWIII.

That’s worth the purchase price of the UN, obviously ... and it ain’t cheap. What do we get for our money and commitment THESE days, though? Think hard, now. There’s the World Health Organisation (WHO?). Granted, they’re a great boon to Mercedes Benz -- an astonishing percentage of their budget is spent on flash cars for WHO officials -- but they don’t do house calls; if you need a doctor, call Medecins sans Frontiers. They run the International Court of Justice, which is nice ... they’re just now looking into the Khmer Rouge massacres of 1975-79, so we can probably expect posthumous prosecution of Kim Jong Il, Mugabe, Assad, and al-Zawahiri sometime before .. 2080? There’s the World Food Program, but they basically collect donations after the situation has become desperate; improving Third World agriculture is for smaller, nimbler NGOs. UNICEF collects donations too, but what they do with the money is a mystery. Most of it probably goes to salaries: the pay for UN office workers is apparently pegged to some multiple of what experienced riggers make for fly-in-fly-out work on Indian Ocean oil platforms. Oh, and they do peacekeeping. They’ll even send in troops, though they aren’t allowed use weapons, and they’re obliged to leave well before any shooting starts.

For a while, the opinions of U Thant or Dag Hammarskjold mattered. These days, when poor ineffectual Ban Ki Moon declares ‘This is not acceptable!’, that pretty clearly translates as ‘It’s too late to lift a finger, so why try?’ I doubt the UN can be reformed. Maybe it can be replaced. Worth a try.

When the Charter of the UN was implemented, it was the island of Taiwan (Formosa) which was representing China as one of the Permanent Members of the Security Council.

It was at the insistance of Stalin's Russia that we have the Veto when the Security Council votes (or even allowed a debate an issue).

All the General Secretaries of the UN are professional diplomats. With the exception of Dag Hammarskjold, all of them have been chosen or agreed by the Permanent Members.

Until the rest of the world community realise that they are more important together than all the Permanent Members put together, there is going to be no reform.

Incidentally, it is in the interest of China to let the other Permanent Members experience difficulties.. It is the interest of the USA to let the other Permanent Members experience problems. All the Permanent Members are essentially persuing their own agenda, often at the expense of the rest of the world community.