Abstract
The end of the East-West confrontation gave new importance to the UN Security Council while at the same time giving rise to new initiatives to reform the UN organization and the Security Council in particular. This development, actively encouraged by Japan’s diplomats in New York, provided the Japanese government with not just an opportunity but even an invitation to clarify its ideas on Security Council reform and to launch a public candidature for permanent membership.
You can stay in the club room, if you are an eccentric, but you’re not going to be asked to be president or vice-president or serve on the finance committee of the club because you’re just Mr Odd Man Out.1
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Notes
James Paul, ‘Security Council Reform: Arguments about the Future of the United Nations System’, revised, February, 1995, website of Global Policy Organization, http://globalpolicy.org/.
Sally Morphet, ‘The influence of states and groups of states on and in the Security Council and General Assembly, 1980–94’, Review of International Studies, vol. 21, no. 4, October 1995, p.447.
Figures from the UN PKO Department, as well as Samuel S. Kim, ‘China and the United Nations’, p.45, fn 3 (manuscript) and United Nations Handbook 1997, ed. New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade, Wellington, 1997, pp.39–41. For a general overview of PKO and observer missions, see Davis B. Bobrow and Mark A. Boyer, ‘Maintaining system stability. Contributions to peacekeeping operations’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 41, no. 6, December 1997, pp.723–48.
Walter Hoffmann, United Nations Security Council reform and restructuring, Livingston, NJ: The Center for UN Reform Education, 1994, pp.32–9.
For Third World concerns about the US-led task force to Somalia in December 1992, see also Mats Berdal, ‘The United Nations in international relations’, Review of International Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, January 1996, p. 105.
Harada Katsuhiro, Kokuren kaikaku to Nihon no yakuwari (UN reform and Japan’s role), Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 1995, p. 149.
On the paper, see S. J. Nutall, ‘Japan and Europe: Policies and initiatives’, in Bert Edström (ed.), Japan’s foreign and security policies in transition, Stockholm: The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, 1997, p.113.
Ishihara Nobuo, Shusho kantet no ketsudan (Decisions at the residence of the Prime Minister), Tokyo: Chuo Koron sha, 1997, p.118.
Takemura also argued for Japan to be invited to the Security Council, and then to act as a unique voice for Asia and taking care of the interests of poor countries: Takemura Masayoshi, Chiisakutomo kirarito hikaru kuni (Japan: a small but outshining nation), Tokyo: Kobunsha, 1994, p.209.
See Mayumi Itoh, ‘Fallen political leadership in Japan: Will a new party eventually emerge?’, JPRI Working Paper no. 49, September 1998. See also 66.
G. Rozman, Japan’s response to the Gorbachev era: A rising superpower views a declining one, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1991. Former ambassador to Moscow, Edamura Sumio, told this author that there were no formal approaches during his time as ambassador (until 1993) to ask Russia for support for Japan’s bid, but just casual ones. Interview with Edamura Sumio, 20 November 1997.
Whatever the sincerity and realism of this Italian proposal, the idea of an EU seat goes back to before 1982 at least: Davidson Nicol, The UNSC: towards greater effectiveness, New York: UN Institute of Training and Research, 1982, p. 14.
See Hideo Sato, ‘Japan’s China perceptions and its policies in the alliance with the United States’, Journal of International Political Economy, vol., 2 no. 1, March 1998, pp.1–24.
Chao Guisheng, ‘Guidelines for UN restructuring’, Beijing Review, 17–23 May 1993, pp.8–9.
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© 2000 Reinhard Drifte
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Drifte, R. (2000). Gathering Support at the Domestic and International Levels. In: Japan’s Quest for a Permanent Security Council Seat. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-07467-6_4
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