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The United Nations and Japan-U.S. Relations

Address by

His Excellency

Kiochi Haraguchi

Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Japan to the United States

July 20, 2004

Thank you, Richard [King], for a most gracious and generous introduction and I wish to thank Consul General Namoto for his very kind words. 

    Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by referring to some historical facts.  In 1853 Commodore Perry of the U.S. Navy arrived in the Bay of Tokyo with his four steam ships, and the following year concluded the Treaty of Amity with the Tokugawa Shogunate.  There was a satirical verse written at that time which reflected very vividly the reaction of the people of Yedo, the former name of Tokyo.  Let me read in Japanese first:

                                    Taihei no

                                    Nemuri o samasu

                                    Jokisen

                                    Tatta shihai de

                                    Yoru mo nemurezu

You might have noticed that the verse was written in the traditional style composed of five lines, five-seven-five-seven-seven-sounds, so in all 31 sounds.  A rough translation of it goes something like this:

Awoken from sleep

of a peaceful quiet world

by Jokisen tea

with only four cups of it

no more sleep possible at night

Just a few explanatory remarks.  “Jokisen” was the brand name for high-grade green tea and it contains a lot of caffeine.  After drinking this tea some people find it difficult to sleep because of its stimulant effect.  The trick is that “steamship” is also pronounced “jokisen” in Japanese, exactly the same as the word for high-grade green tea.  “Shihai” means four cups in Japanese, but is pronounced the same as when we refer to four vessels.  So the hidden meaning of these verses, “Awoke from sleep of a peaceful quiet world by steamships with only four vessels no more must be possible at night.”  That’s the hidden meaning of this satirical verse.  The sudden arrival of the black ships at the Bay of Tokyo truly must have been an earthshaking event for the people of Japan.  They must have talked the night away on how the world around them would develop in the future.  At the same time, however, it was a moment that marked the advent of modern civilization in traditional Japan.  The arrival of the black ships and the conclusion of the Treaty of Amity were the dramatic starting point of Japan’s encounter with the modern civilization of North America and Europe and the transformation of its society.  U.S.-Japan relations which started out in this way celebrate their 150^th anniversary now. 

For about 15 years, between 1930 and 1945, our two nations furiously confronted each other and finally went to war over the Pacific.  That was really unfortunate, but during the rest of the time, that is, for 90 percent of those 150 years, our bilateral relations have been mutually beneficial and friendly.  Particularly over the last several years, our bilateral relations have flourished to an extent never experienced before.

I had the pleasure of serving in Los Angeles as Consul General of Japan in the early 1990s for one year and seven months.  As a diplomat I have been posted in various cities and countries, but one and one-half years in Los Angeles occupies a very special place in my memory.  It may be partly because that was my first posting as a head of mission but the major reason, I believe, lies in the people and the city of Los Angeles itself.  L.A. is where the largest Japanese-American community in North America resides.  There is also a large Japanese business community here.  Furthermore, there is a sizeable group other than Japanese-Americans who are also interested in Japan.  L. A., in fact, has been the major gateway city between the United States and Japan.  My work as Consul General was challenging, certainly, but my wife and I were treated with great kindness and warmth for which we are still very, very grateful. 

I have also stayed in other parts of the United States over the years.  I studied for two years at a small college in Massachusetts upon joining the Foreign Service, and on separate occasions I was posted in Boston, Washington, D.C., and now in New York City.  Our two younger sons finished their senior high school and college in the United States and both of them are now working for American companies.  For these personal reasons the United States is a country with which we feel particularly familiar and intimate.  However, starting with the Japanese Foreign Ministry much earlier, I have had a number of opportunities to observe our bilateral relations in a context different from the personal one. 

The first thing which I have come to realize is the vital importance of our bilateral relationship.  It is true with regard to security matters, economic and trade fields, as well as social and cultural areas.  Both Japan and the United States, but particularly Japan, benefit enormously from this close friendly relationship.  Now I am representing Japan at the United Nations.  As a result, I have had the opportunity to view bilateral relations in yet another context, that is in the multi-lateral context, and I’m naturally very interested in identifying what positive role our bilateral cooperative relations can play in the international community as well. 

There are two major issues of concern which the United Nations must address today.  First is the development of poorer countries, and second the maintenance of international peace and security. 

Let me speak first on the developmental issue.  Japan was definitely a poor developing country when Commodore Perry arrived at the Bay of Tokyo.  It was an era of imperialism, and almost all of the territories on earth other than North America and Europe were colonized.  Japan became acutely aware, through contact with the United States and the European powers, of the urgent need for modernization and made a concerted and frantic effort towards it.  There was literally a national drive towards development.  The Japanese government, with a view to catching up with the developed countries at the earliest opportunity, took measures such as hiring foreign scholars and experts as professors in universities or advisors in government offices at salaries higher than that provided to our prime minister and dispatched many promising young people to developed countries to study at the governments expense.  They studied very hard, and upon returning to Japan contributed knowledge they had acquired for the modernization and development of their own land.  Thanks to these efforts, Japan became the first non-American, non-European country to have successfully achieved its modernization.  Just as Japan’s victory over Czarist Russia was a revelation to the people in the colonized world, I believe that the success of Japan in modernizing itself was historically significant in terms of its impact on the development aspirations of other developing countries. 

As a result of the last world war, Japan had to tackle its reconstruction by starting over from the very beginning.  But Japan has somehow managed to succeed in developing into the world’s second largest economy.  The history of this economic development and the reconstruction of Japan after the war has had a strong impact on neighboring countries.  First, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, followed by other countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia the Philippines and most recently China, achieved a robust economic development.  These countries studied Japan’s experience and policies in detail, and perhaps its failures as well as successes, and made good use of the result of their studies in their development policies.  But the historical fact that Japan, a non-American, non-European country, was able to succeed in its modernization must have provided them with reassurance and encouragement while they were struggling to achieve their own development. 

When the development issues are discussed in the U.N., many of the developing countries make a point of stressing the importance of international assistance for them.  But economic assistance will not be effective if there is no spirit of self-help or sense of ownership on part of recipient countries.  I believe that Japan’s experience has proved the vital importance of ownership in achieving economic development.  It is not my intention at all to deny the importance of economic support from developed countries, but I wish to emphasize that economic development can succeed only when there is a happy marriage, as it were, between the ownership of the recipient countries and the partnership of the international community.  The United States and Japan are major donors of official development assistance.  There are many positive things that the two countries can achieve if we cooperate further with each other in this field. 

Turning to the issue of international peace and security, it is the Security Council that has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in the United Nations.  The United States is one of the permanent members of the Council; furthermore, the U.S. is without any doubt the world’s strongest military power.  There can be no peacekeeping operation in the United Nations without the support of the U.S. Even if some enforcement operation is approved in the U.N., it is often unable to fulfill its intended objectives without active U.S. cooperation.  It is evident that military strength is indispensable in bringing about a ceasefire or deposing international outlaws, and the role which the U.S. has been playing in the field is overwhelming. 

On the other hand, when we speak of the maintenance for international peace and security, military might alone is not sufficient to sustain peace and security.  In a post- conflict society, there are many ex-soldiers on the streets still carrying weapons.  If no jobs are available for them, it is quite likely that they will become a destabilizing element with the weapons they carry.  The repatriation and resettlement of refugees and internally displaced persons must be supported as well.  The anger and hatred against those who have committed atrocities during conflicts will also remain deep and persistent.  It will be necessary to bring those responsible for those atrocities to justice, and it will be necessary to promote reconciliation among the people as well.  Establishing a decent government is required through fair elections, too.  It is also essential to promote reconstruction and development so as to provide people with a stable base in order to give them a stable life.  We call this kind of work the “consolidation of peace.” 

If we do not address these tasks seriously, the ceasefire which has been realized with so much effort and sacrifice may slide back into the former conflict situation.  In other words, with a view to maintaining international peace and security it is certainly necessary to achieve a ceasefire, even by resorting to military actions if need be.  However, we also must be prepared to make long-lasting and patient efforts for the consolidation of peace.  This relationship is quite clear in the current situation in Iraq.  Although the coalition forces were able to win the major battle overwhelmingly, no stability in Iraqi society seems possible without the steady promotion of appropriate of political processes and visible improvements in the area of reconstruction and development.  Japan has been playing a significant role in the field of assistance for the consolidation of peace.  We have dispatched our self-defense force troops to Golan Heights, Cambodia, Mozambique and East Timor to respond to their humanitarian and reconstruction needs in the framework of the U.N. peacekeeping operations (PKOs).  And now, although it is not part of a U.N.-sponsored PKO, we have sent several hundred soldiers to Iraq for humanitarian and reconstruction purposes.  Furthermore, Japan hosted the Donor’s Conference on Afghanistan in Tokyo and helped to establish a firm foundation for the international assistance for the consolidation of peace in Afghanistan.  We also pledged as much as $5 billion in humanitarian aid and reconstruction assistance for Iraq at the Madrid Conference, which helped to bring the conference to a successful conclusion. 

Of course, there are conflict areas in which U.N. PKOs are obliged to resort to military action.  We need soldiers prepared to engage in military action, if necessary, in the PKOs.  We are fortunate to have a number of countries which are willing to provide soldiers to the U.N.-sponsored PKOs, and the international community should be grateful for the valuable contribution to international peace and security.  However, sending troops to PKOs costs a lot of money, and I want you to know that the financial expenses are in fact borne by the United Nations.  The troop-contributing countries receive refunds from the United Nations calculated on the basis of an agreed-upon formula, for example, say one $1,000 per month.  If there were no such reimbursement from the United Nations, I suspect that we would not be witnessing PKOs of the current magnitude.  Then the question is: where is the source of the funds needed for such reimbursement?  The fact is that financing comes from the assessed contribution for the PKOs of the member countries.  Here, too, the United States has been making an outstanding contribution that assumes some 27 percent of the entire cost.  Japan, too, provides some 20 percent, which makes it the next largest financial contributor after the U.S.  As a matter of fact, Japan’s contribution is bigger than the combined contributions of the four other permanent members of the Security Council. 

My conclusion is that, even in the context of the United Nations, the United States and Japan have been playing a very important role together, especially with respect to the two major tasks and challenges confronting the international community and the United Nations.

Having said that, there is one issue to which I wish to draw your attention: the authority of the Security Council in the United Nations is overwhelming.  However, the Security Council, with the exception of a single expansion of its membership from 11 to 15 in the mid-1960s, has remained unchanged in terms of its size, composition and veto powers since the founding of the United Nations.  The geopolitical reality surrounding the U.N., in the meantime, has undergone tremendous change. 

The U.N. membership, which amounted to only 51 in 1945 is now 191—almost quadrupled.  At the same time, the Council has come to implement an increasing number of PKOs, and recently has even started adopting normal setting resolutions whose effects seem similar to those of international treaties such as the one aimed at securing nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.

In order to expect the 176 non-Council members to consider the Council’s resolution as “ours” not as “theirs” agreed to only among the 15 Council members, and to expect them to cooperate in fulfilling the resolution willingly and proactively, the Security Council must be regarded as having sufficient legitimacy and credibility.  In order for the Council to be regarded as legitimate and credible, I believe it must be sufficiently representative, effective and efficient in light of the geopolitical reality of the 21^st century, not that of 1945.  The lack of representation in the current Security Council is evident.  It is clearly necessary to increase the number of Council members, but at the same time too loose an expansion of membership should be avoided because it will hurt to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Council, the other element that defines its legitimacy and credibility.

Therefore, the Security Council has to be expanded to a reasonable number while paying due consideration first to those members which have both the will and the capability to make a substantial contribution to the maintenance of international peace and security, and second, to an equitable regional representation.  From this standpoint, the current state of the permanent membership should also be reexamined.  In view of the new requirement for the Security Council to address more seriously the aspects of a consolidated peace, and in light of the substantial contributions Japan has been making to the U.N. tasks, both of which I mentioned earlier, I believe that Japan is well qualified to be nominated to be a new permanent member of the Council.  It would be both logical and beneficial for the U.N. 

Unfortunately, however, the United States has not shown much interest in Security Council reform, at least up to now.  I suspect that the U.S. may be concerned that the Security Council would not be able to act promptly enough if its membership were expanded, or that the deliberation in the Council might be obstructed if there were more permanent members with veto powers.  But if nothing is done, the number of U.N.-member countries who feel that the Security Council is losing its legitimacy will inevitably increase.  Countries like Japan will not be able to rid themselves of the feeling that they are being treated unfairly in the U.N.  As a result, I’m deeply concerned that the support for the U.N. and its effectiveness will be gradually eroded. 

Reform of the Security Council requires an amendment to the U.N. Charter supported by a two-thirds majority, which includes all five permanent members of the Security Council.  Therefore, those who insisted on the reform of the Council have to secure the required support of two-thirds of the U.N. member states.  However, even if that support is secured, if just one of the five permanent members objects, reform cannot be implemented.  The position of the United States on this matter is very, very crucial in view of its overwhelming influence in the world.  Last year Secretary General Kofi Annan established a 16-member high level panel and asked its members to consider first what the new threats to the current international community are, second, whether collective action would be effective enough to counter those new threats, and third, if in fact the U.N. would be able to carry out such collective action effectively under the current system.  The report of the panel is scheduled to be submitted to the Secretary General in December of this year. 

I guess that the response to the third question of the Secretary General will inevitably be related to reform of the U.N., including the reform of the Security Council.  We are convinced that the report will touch on the current need for reforming the Security Council, and that will surely create a powerful momentum.  As far as Japan is concerned, we are determined to take advantage of that momentum because we believe that reform of the Security Council is indispensable to enable the United Nations to function more effectively to the interests of us all.  If we miss this chance, on the other hand, we should be aware that there won’t be a second chance any time soon.  It would be extremely unfortunate for the international community.  Therefore, it is our sole goal that the United States will also take a deeper and more proactive interest in reforming the Security Council for the sake of the international community, for the sake of the United States itself and for the sake of Japan.

Thank you very much.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of the World Affairs Council, which pays neither honoraria or expenses to its speakers.