Asia Times: Tokyo finds money can't buy UN's love


	July 20, 2000	atimes.com

Japan

Tokyo finds money can't buy UN's love
By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS - Japan, the second largest contributor to the UN budget, is bitterly disappointed that its most ambitious goal at the United Nations - a permanent seat in the 15-member Security Council - still remains beyond its reach.

Despite its high-powered lobbying - and the tremendous influence it wields as the world's biggest 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''.

''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 Council.

The world's five big powers at the United Nations - the United States, 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 world body, 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 Council door, namely Japan and Germany, have so far been shut out because member states remain hopelessly deadlocked on whether they qualify to be big powers. Unless there is a dramatic change in thinking - or a sheer political miracle - the proposed expansion of the Council may be confined only to an increase in non-permanent members, from the current 10 to 15 or 20.

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 Five.

The reform of the Council, which has been on the UN agenda for nearly a decade, is expected to be one of the items for discussion at the summit meeting of the Group of Eight - the United States, France, Britain, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan and Russia - meeting in Okinawa from July 21-23. But there is very little the G8 can do without strong support from the remaining 180 members of the UN General Assembly.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has indicated his sympathy for Japan, says it is hard to imagine a nation that does more, across the breadth of the international agenda. ''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 program 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''. He adds: ''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 UN member states, has been laboring for over five years with hardly any success. Although Japan has aggressively 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 Security Council.

Last year, a Japanese diplomat campaigning on behalf of his countryman for the top job at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) was quoted as saying: ''No Japan, no Unesco.'' After a bruising battle, Ambassador Koichiro Matsuura of Japan, beat out candidates from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Australia, Romania, France, Indonesia, Hungary, the Philippines and Trinidad and Tobago for the top job at Unesco.

Before the election, The New York Times said that Unesco headquarters were ''buzzing with rumors that the Japanese and Saudi governments had promised generous aid packages to several Third World countries in exchange for their votes''.

Currently, Japan accounts for 20 percent of the $1.3 billion annual UN budget, is the number one donor with an average of about $11 billion in ODA annually, and is the largest single contributor to Unesco, the UN Development Program (UNDP), and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), among various other UN funds and programs.

Since most high ranking jobs in the UN system are now donor driven, Japan has been accused of resorting to ''check-book diplomacy''.

When Japan's Hiroshi Nakajima ran for a second term as director- general of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993, the elections were marred by a vote-buying scandal. Japan was accused of pressuring aid recipients, mostly poorer developing nations in Africa, to cast their votes in favor of Japan. The trade-off was apparently increased Japanese aid. Nakajima won by an overwhelming majority.

Besides WHO's Nakajima, some of the distinguished Japanese who held high UN office include Judge S Oda of the International Court of Justice in the Hague. and Yashushi Akashi, Under-Secretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs and the Secretary-General's Special Representative both in Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia.

Currently, some of the senior UN officials include Unesco's Matsuura, Under-Secretary-General Kensaku Hogen, who heads the UN's Department of Public Information, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, and Assistant Secretary-General for Central Support Services, Niwa Toshiyuki.

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 of 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 is an indication of where one could draw the line,'' he notes.

(Inter Press Service)

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