Japan needs permanent UN Security Council seat

By Edward Neilan

Issue on permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council could be among those discussed when Chinese President Jiang Zemin comes to Tokyo for a meeting with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.

TOKYO (JP): Based on qualification, world power reality, money in the bank, diplomatic leverage, the quest for global stability beyond 2000, and old-fashioned moxie, Japan should act now to demand being seated as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

What better time for the finalizing of such an event than the turn of the clock announcing a new century?

And what better time and setting to get the diplomatic ball rolling toward that goal than next month's meeting in Tokyo between Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.

As with the case of U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to China in July, the Chinese side wants to set the agenda for the Sino-Japan meeting.

Whatever else you may read about the agenda items for the visit, be assured that Beijing wants some public assurances from Japan that the new defense guidelines between Tokyo and Washington do not apply specifically to Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait.

Confirmation of Beijing's preoccupation and insistence on this matter comes from no less an authority than Tetsuzo Fuwa, Chairman of the Japan Communist Party (JCP) who met President Jiang recently in Beijing.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan last week, 10-term lawmaker Fuwa expressed his surprise that Jiang had been more serious on the Taiwan issue than on problems like the 30-year chill in relations between the Chinese and Japanese communist parties, the Asian financial crisis and continued impasse on the Korean Peninsula.

There is some reason to believe that Jiang wants Obuchi to reiterate Japan's Taiwan policy much in the way Clinton was coaxed into pinning down the "three no's" of U.S. policy toward Taiwan. The U.S. Congress thought Clinton's statement was excessive and condemned it in a near-unanimous resolution.

The point is that if China wants its own agenda to be addressed, it must also listen to others' points of view. China must take some actions that go beyond its own narrow nationalistic assertions and do some things that are good for Asia generally.

Now is the moment to spell out for China that it is not calling all the shots on the Asia-Pacific landscape. The time is ripe to move the Security Council permanent seat issue from a talking point to an action point.

Japan must campaign boldly for the permanent Security Council seat while making it clear what it seeks in guaranteeing its own global security.

There is a general consensus in Japan that these objectives should be sought within the framework of its security arrangement with the United States.

"If Japan seeks to abandon its bilateral security set-up and go it alone, there will be good reason for other Asian nations to believe that this country will seek to become a military power," said Kensuke Ebata, a defense specialist speaking at a Tokyo seminar last October.

He said the international community would not accept Japan's assertion that it has the right to collective self-defense under international law, but that it was not allowed to exercise that right under its constitution.

Other experts at that and subsequent seminars have said Japan must take advantage of its diplomatic prowess to gain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Many agree that Japan should accept all obligations that come with full membership. A full domestic debate would be healthy on this point.

Polls have shown that a proposal to increase the Security Council membership by two---Japan and Germany---could be successful. But lately, bids by India (on the heels of its nuclear test), Egypt and Brazil have been heard.

One of the traits of the new Japan we see emerging at the dawn of 2000 is a more bold diplomatic posture, combining an adjusted alliance with the United States and a more independent line focused through the United Nations, on whose Security Council Japan would own a permanent seat.

The writer is a Tokyo-based analyst of Northeast Asian affairs.