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.
Wolfgang Wagner, ‘Der ständige Sitz im Sicherheitsrat. Wer braucht wen: Die Deutschen diesen Sitz? Der Sicherheitsrat die Deutschen?’ (Permanent Security Council seat. Who needs whom? The Germans the seat? The Security Council the Germans?), Europa-Archiv, Folge 19/1993, p.534.
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.
See, for example, Patrick A. McCarthy, ‘Positionality, tension and instability in the UN Security Council’, EUI Working Paper RSC No. 97/12, European University Institute, Florence, 1997, p.12, fn. 20. Bailey and Daws do not consider it to be a Charter amendment: Sydney Bailey and Sam Daws (eds), The procedure of the UN Security Council, p.381.
Harada Katsuhiro, Kokuren kaikaku to Nihon no yakuwari, (UN reform and Japan’s role), Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 1995, p.149.
Ingo Winkelmann, ‘Bringing the Security Council into a new era’, p.42, fn. 31. For the text of Kinkel’s speech, see Europa-Archiv, Folge 20/1992, pp.D 597 ff.
Yamada Tsutomu, ‘“Joninrijikoku” iri’, p.231. During his visit to Japan in February 1993, Kohl said that the UN should be strengthened, but he did not strongly demand permanent Security Council membership: Sotooka Hidetoshi, Kokuren shinjidai, (The new age of the UN), Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho, 1994, p.131.
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.
Hatano Yoshio and Moroi Ken, ‘Nihon no joninrijikoku iri o dou kangaeru ka’ (What to think about Japan becoming a permanent member of the Security Council?), Gaiko Forum, September 1994, p.41.
Ishihara Nobuo, Shusho kantei no ketsudan, (Decisions at the residence of the Prime Minister), Tokyo: Chuo Koron sha, 1997, p.118.
Tanaka Shusei, ‘Kokuren kaikaku ga honsuji “Joninka gaiko” ni kago ari’ (The right course for the reform of the UN and the error in the ‘Diplomacy of permanent membership in the UN Security Council’) Ronza, December 1994, p.27.
Kyodo, 2 September 1994, quoted in C. S. Ahn, ‘Government–party coordination in Japan’s foreign policy-making. The issue of permanent membership in Japan’s foreign policy-making’, Asian Survey, vol. XXXVII, no. 4, April 1997, p.371. A UN Reform Council (Kokuren kaikaku kondankai) was established under Prime Ministecssued a report.
For an overview, see Ishimura Zenji, ‘Nihon no media no gaiyo’ (Synopsis of the Japanese media), Sogo Kenkyusho Ho, no. 176, October 1995, Fukuoka University, pp.157–8. For an overview of interpretations among UN delegations in New York, see Harada Katsuhiro, Kokuren kaikaku to Nihon no yakuwari, pp.85 ff.
See Mayumi Itoh, ‘Fallen political leadership in Japan: Will a new party eventually emerge?’, JPRI Working Paper no. 49, September 1998. See also 66.
Stephanie A. Weston, ‘Beikoku no masu media to gaiko seisaku: Wareware no chosa ni tsuite no kosatsu’ (US mass media and foreign policy: Remarks on our investigation), Sogo Kenkyusho Ho, no. 176, October 1995, Fukuoka University, pp.73–81.
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.
Valeriy Kistanov, ‘Japan turns from a defeated nation into a world leader’, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 24 February 1998, carried in Northeast Asia Peace and Security Network Daily Report for Tuesday, 3 March 1998.
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.
The Chinese opposition to Japanese leadership in Asia in connection with the bid is, for example, strongly expressed in Zhu Feng, ‘Kokuren kaikaku. Chugoku no shiten’ (The reform of the UN. The Chinese perspective), in Meiji Gakuin Daigaku Kokusai Heiwa Kenkyusho, Mushakoji Kinhide (ed.), Kokuren no zaisei to chikyu minshushugi, Tokyo: 1995, pp.219–41.
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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/10.1057/9780230598843_4
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