Gamal Essam El-Din finds the world's second-largest economy craving for a greater international role Japan has recently been hit by an earthquake. Not only that, but a record nine typhoons have hit the archipelago of islands in the last year. They might easily serve as a metaphor for the country's political climate, which is as stormy as its meteorological counterpart. Apart from reformist Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial plans to privatise the postal system, or maybe the world's largest bank with $3.2 trillion assets, Japan has ambitions to win a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. Addressing an extraordinary Diet (House of Representatives) session on 12 October Koizumi pledged that his government would continue to push hard for a Security Council seat. That Japan recently hosted a two-day conference on reconstruction efforts in Iraq adds fuel to the high-powered lobbying. Long a leading player on the world's economic stage Japan has, according to Jun Iio, a political science professor at the University of Tokyo, so far failed to translate economic power into political clout. It is, Iio argues, something of a political "infant". In September Japanese ambitions to wield a veto moved into higher gear when it joined Brazil, Germany and India in launching a united bid for permanent Security Council seats. In his address to the Security Council Koizumi argued that "it must improve its representation to better reflect today's world". "Countries with the will and resources to play a major role in international peace and security must take part in the council's decision-making processes on a permanent basis," he added. Japan's GDP accounts for 14.4 per cent of the global economy. Yet, according to Japanese Foreign Ministry officials, Tokyo provides 19.5 per cent of the UN budget, almost $1.7 billion per annum, more than the combined contribution of Britain, China, France and Russia. The fifth Security Council permanent member, the United States, accounts for 30 per cent of the world's GDP but provides only 22 per cent of the UN's budget. "We have to question why we, a country with no permanent seat on the Security Council, should accept to bear this inflated cost," says Yukio Okamoto, chairman of Koizumi's task force on foreign relations. Japan has threatened to reduce its UN budget contribution by 25 per cent should it not become a veto-wielding power. Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat has won the support of many states. It has met hostility, though, from two of Japan's neighbours, China and South Korea. Tokyo was taken by surprise, two weeks ago, when South Korea's foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, argued that "how much trust and support a country receives from its neighbours must be a key criterion for veto-wielding membership." Japan has long been criticised by its neighbours for what they see as Tokyo's failure to atone for atrocities committed during Japan's military and colonial expansion in the first half of the 20th century. Ki-moon went on to state that South Korea considers it a priority to increase the number of non-permanent members of the council rather than the permanent seats. China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Kong Quan, stated last month that the Security Council is "not a board of directors" and its composition should not be decided "according to the financial contribution of its members". "China believes that if a country wishes to play a responsible role in international affairs, it must have a clear understanding of the historical questions concerning itself," Quan went on to say. Chinese opposition to Tokyo's bid escalated following Koizumi's visit to a Tokyo war shrine honouring the 2.5 million Japanese soldiers killed in modern wars, including convicted war criminals such as World War II leader Hideki Tojo. Tensions have reached such a stage that Koizumi and Chinese premier Wen Jiabao failed to meet during the recent Asia- Europe Meeting held in Hanoi. While the US publicly supports Japan's bid many US congressmen harbour doubts over Tokyo's commitment to fully engage in UN peace-keeping operations. They believe that Japan's bid to join the Security Council sits uncomfortably with Article 9 of Japan's constitution which prohibits the use of military force overseas. Many commentators believe that Japan's relationship with the US must be clarified if it is to play a larger international role. Many Japanese, Iio believes, are worried that if Japan does become a permanent member it will do little beyond rallying behind US positions. Akira Tashiro, a senior writer with the Chugoku Shimbun, a Hiroshima based newspaper, argues that while Japan no longer harbours hostility towards the US for the two nuclear bombs dropped in 1945, the public objects to Tokyo's circling in the US orbit. "It is time that we had our own identity and profile in the international area," says Tashiro. Hiroshima was, incidentally, the scene of one of Japan's biggest public protests against the war in Iraq in March 2003. And following the kidnapping and beheading of a Japanese citizen last month anti-war sentiments have been re-ignited. Several demonstrations were held demanding an end to "Bush's war in Iraq" and calling on Koizumi to withdraw troops. And the presence of 58,000 US military personnel stationed in Japan, two-thirds of them based on Okinawa island, is also a matter of public disquiet. Sunao Tsuboi, a Hiroshima citizen who survived the nuclear bombing of his city in August 1945, argues that the majority of the Japanese public believes George W Bush is "responsible for the proliferation of terrorism and the craving of many countries to acquire nuclear weapons". It is a craving, Tashiro argues, that is increasingly felt in Japan. Faced with threats from North Korea many politicians now feel that Japan must acquire its own nuclear deterrent. "It is a fact," he says, "although people in Japan think of their country as a nation that has been anti-nuclear since Hiroshima." The debate about amending Japan's pacifist constitution has been bubbling beneath the surface for years. Now, though, it is becoming increasingly public. The Japanese, says Iio, are extolling the virtues of national strength and pride with greater freedom and enthusiasm than at any time since 1945. And it is the debate about patriotism and international diplomacy that Tashiro believes lies at the heart of the many contradictions that run through Japanese society -- a major power firmly in the orbit of the US, an economic giant that plays a remarkably small diplomatic role in the world and a pacifist nation whose culture is infused with militarism. "But the fact remains," he insists, "that we are a great nation that rose from the ashes of the Hiroshima and Nagazaki bombs to build an economic miracle and this is why we deserve to be a veto-wielding power."
