23rd July 2000

Japan- eyeing for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council

And as one of the world's richest nations, Japan has the largest hoard of international reserves, outranking the US, Germany and France, among Western industrial nations.

As of January, Japan's reserves amounted to a hefty $295 billion, ranking ahead of China ($160 billion), Taiwan ($110 billion), Hong Kong ($95 billion), South Korea ($77 billion) and Singapore ($76 billion).

The US, on the other hand, was far behind with $61 billion in reserves, Germany with $60 billion and France $39 billion.

To put it in local perspective, Sri Lanka's international reserves stood at $1.6 billion in January this year, according to figures released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

At the summit meeting of the Group of Eight in Okinawa last week, Japan is said to have pledged about $18 billion to boost information technologies and fight infectious diseases worldwide.

And according to the London Financial Times, Japan spent an estimated $750 million hosting the G-8 summit, the largest sum ever spent on a meeting of heads of state.

But despite its riches and its international standing in the donor community, Japan is still nowhere close to achieving its most ambitious political goal: a permanent seat in the 15-member UN Security Council.

"The Japanese would give anything and perhaps sacrifice everything they have to get that elusive permanent seat in the Security Council," says an Asian diplomat, who is privy to the ongoing closed-door negotiations on the reform of the Security Council.

The world's five big powers at the UN - the US, Britain, France, China and Russia are the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council.

The veto powers they wield elevate them to the ranks of the five most powerful countries in the Organisation giving them the ultimate authority to declare war and peace and also decide on who should, and who shouldn't, be subjected to international sanctions.

But the two countries feverishly knocking at the Security Council door, namely Japan and Germany, have so far been shut out because the UN's member states remain hoplessly deadlocked on whether they qualify to be big powers.

Despite its high-powered lobbying and the tremendous influence it wields as an aid donor Japan has failed to convince the majority of the remaining 187 member states that it richly deserves the title of a "veto-wielding, big power".

Unless there is a dramatic change in thinking or a sheer political miracle the proposed expansion of the Security Council may be confined only to an increase in the non-permanent members, from the current 10 to about 15.

But this is not exactly what Japan is seeking: it wants an increase in the number of permanent seats so that it can join the exclusive ranks of the Big Powers in the Council.

The reform of the Security Council, which has been on the UN agenda for nearly a decade, was one of the items slated for informal discussions at the summit meeting of the Group of Eight— namely, US, France, Britain, Russia, Italy, Germany, Canada and Japan.

But there was very little the Group of Eight could do without strong support from the remaining 180 members of the UN General Assembly.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has indicated his sympathy towards Japan, says it is hard to imagine a nation that does more, across the breadth of the international agenda, than Japan.

"Japan is unquestionably one of the world's leading economic powers, and its performance remains crucial to the recovery of all the East Asian economies," he points out.

Annan also says that Japan continues to have the largest programme for Official Development Assistance (ODA) in the world, with support reaching a "remarkable" 160 countries. "And I need hardly remind you that Japan is the second largest contributor to the regular budget of the United Nations. Indeed, it is, at present, the first in terms of actual payments."

But frankly, admits Annan, a permanent seat in the Security Council is "a matter for the member states to decide". "But I hope they will address this without further delay."

But no one seems to be in a hurry to create permanent seats either for Germany or Japan. A Working Committe on the Reform of the Security Council, comprising all 188 member states, has been labouring for over five years but with hardly any success.

Although Japan has aggresively used its financial clout to push for high-ranking jobs in the UN system in the past it has failed miserably to get the necessary support to clinch a permanent seat in the Security Council.

Last year there were reports that some Japanese politicians were proposing to use the country's economic power as leverage threatening to scale back Japan's ODA and reducing its voluntary contributions to the UN.

"I believe this would be counter-productive, and unworthy of Japan's high standing in the world, not to mention its people's generosity at heart," Annan told a Japanese audience in Tokyo last year.

But one Third World diplomat says that there is obviously a limit to what money can and cannot buy. "Japan's unsuccessful bid for a permanent seat in the Security Council table is an indication of where one could draw the line," he notes.