US embassy cable - 05TOKYO1351

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TOKYO 001351 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/J AND IO A/S HOLMES 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/07/2030 
TAGS: PREL, JA, UNSC 
SUBJECT: U.S.-JAPAN INFORMAL POLICY PLANNING BILATERAL: 
PART II EVENING SESSION, MARCH 2, 2005 
 
REF: TOKYO 001349 
 
Classified By: POLMIN David B. Shear.  Reasons:1.4(b/d). 
 
1.  (C)  Summary:  Deputy Vice Foreign Minister Nishida and 
Foreign Policy Bureau Deputy Director General Tsuruoka made 
an impassioned case for Japanese permanent UNSC membership 
during a March 2 dinner with visiting S/P Director Krasner. 
They outlined Japan's strategy as hinging on a three-stage 
UNGA process in which members would first be asked to vote 
for or against increasing UNSC membership by "up to" nine 
members.  The UNGA would vote on individual countries for up 
to six permanent seats, then vote on an amendment to the 
charter.  They explained that this would minimize opposition 
to expanding the council and maximize Japan's chances of 
being elected to a new permanent seat despite UNGA opposition 
to other possible candidates since they believed Japan to be 
the only country likely to garner the requisite two-thirds in 
a sequential vote on individual aspirants.  Tsuruoka said 
that this strategy was based on the assumption that the U.S. 
is not interested in Security Council expansion despite its 
frequent expressions of support for Japan and that Japan thus 
will have to generate its own momentum for change.  They 
urged U.S. support for this strategy and pledged that the GOJ 
would keep us informed of progress.  End Summary. 
 
Why Japan Wants a Permanent UNSC Seat 
------------------------------------- 
 
2.  (C)  Nishida claimed that obtaining a permanent Japanese 
UNSC seat is Prime Minister Koizumi's highest priority.  The 
Japanese people want to be recognized as a fully fledged 
great power, he added, calling UN reform an historic task. 
He said that the post-war world has passed, the UN structure 
is outdated, and the global community needs a UN that can 
effectively address current realities, not those of 1945. 
Japan faces three big unresolved issues, Nishida continued: 
its quest for a permanent UNSC seat; the Northern 
Territories; and normalization with of relations with North 
Korea.  The Japanese people have experienced a dramatic 
economic and social restructuring, and they want to be 
recognized by the United States and the international 
community.  No future Japanese prime minister can avoid 
supporting the UN reform issue, Nishida averred, adding that 
the Prime Minister had made a strong pitch on this issue to 
outgoing Ambassador Baker during a farewell dinner.  Indeed, 
Nishida added, popular sentiment w 
as that Japan had supported the United States for fifty years 
and yet the U.S. was now failing to stand up for Japan in its 
efforts in the UNSC. 
 
The GOJ Strategy 
---------------- 
 
3.  (C)   Nishida volunteered that the GOJ was pursuing a 
three-stage process in the General Assembly through which the 
GOJ would first table a resolution proposing a "framework" 
for a UNSC with up to nine new seats, six of which would be 
for new permanent members without veto power.  He hoped the 
GOJ could table the resolution during May/June.  The GOJ had 
discussed this within the G-4 and believed it could secure 
their support, according to Nishida.  The proposal for up to 
six permanent members rather than four would be based on the 
assumption that African states would be included.  He went on 
to explain that the GOJ then hoped to table a second 
resolution calling for separate, secret ballots on individual 
aspirants to the new seats.  This could be done by the end of 
this year, he thought.  Nishida was confident that Japan 
could get the two-thirds majority necessary to join the 
council as a permanent member but was doubtful that the other 
possible candidates could secure enough votes.  Nishida and 
Tsuruoka said that the GOJ's goal in this process is to 
 
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establish a credible Japanese candidacy.  There would then be 
a third vote on a proposal to amend the charter.  They 
indicated that the first stage is designed to secure G-4 and 
others' support for a subsequent vote on individual members. 
The second stage is designed to maximize support for Japan 
and winnow out possible members other than Japan, thus 
minimizing the size of the new council.  A single vote on a 
new set of members would fail, Tsuruoka argued, because 
countries would vote against the entire group based on 
hostility to one of its members. 
 
4.  (C)  S/P Director Krasner was skeptical that other G-4 
members would support Japan's proposal for separate votes on 
new members as it seemed to rely on the assumption that other 
G-4 members had an imperfect knowledge of their chances of 
election.  They would only agree to discrete votes in the 
second phase if they thought themselves likely to be elected. 
 Nishida responded that there was no real public support for 
the UNSC effort among the Indian people; New Delhi is not 
strongly interested in UNSC reform, and the GOI was happy 
with the GOJ approach.  Likewise for Germany, Nishida said. 
Schroeder had only decided to pursue UNSC reform to bolster 
his popularity, but support among the German public was weak, 
and this would work in Japan's favor, Nishida argued. 
According to Tsuruoka, the two-stage resolution is the least 
divisive way of achieving UNSC expansion that secures Japan a 
seat.  S/P Director Krasner wondered why the the GOJ thought 
the U.S. should support an initial resolution calling for a 
UNSC expansion of up to nine new seats.  He suggested it was 
unrealistic to expect that the U.S. could support such a 
resolution not knowing the outcome of the individual votes on 
new members because it might put the U.S. in the awkward 
position of having to veto a proposed charter amendment. 
Nishida replied that if the U.S. wants the resolution to 
propose five new members and not nine, the GOJ could be 
flexible.  Tsuruoka interjected that the GOJ cannot guarantee 
that the end result will be that only Japan is elected. 
Japan wants to establish a basis for a legitimate candidacy, 
he repeated; after that, how we eliminate other candidates is 
a matter for some real diplomacy, but if the United States 
requires absolute assurance of the outcome it will kill the 
entire process. 
 
Where the U.S. Comes In 
----------------------- 
 
5.  (C)  Nishida framed the issue of U.S. support as a test 
of loyalty to an ally.  He said that the Japanese public 
knows that the UK and others are inviting China to observe 
the G-8.  China is a member of the UNSC and the public may 
sense that the United States wants to preserve a council 
membership that excludes Japan and retains China.  The GOJ is 
not guided by a small set of interests in this effort, 
Tsuruoka explained, and believes UN reform will serve the 
 
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world community.  "The U.S. can't continue to live in a dream 
world in which it thinks it can do everything by itself," he 
remarked.  Tsuruoka added that the GOJ knows what's going on 
among those countries that want reform and will keep the 
United States informed, cautioning that if Washington takes a 
wrong step "it could kill everything with consequences for 
public opinion of the U.S. in Japan and, thus, for the 
alliance, including Japanese support for activities like 
overseas deployment of the SDF." 
 
6.  (C)  Tsuruoka continued that the GOJ assumes that the 
United States does not want UN Security Council reform but 
will provide more than just moral support for a Japanese 
candidacy when the circumstances are right.  He recalled that 
several years ago the GOJ launched an attempt to gain a UNSC 
seat by trying to convince the United States of the need for 
UN reform and relying on the U.S. to take it from there. 
Then UN Ambassadors Albright and Pickering were reluctant to 
consider the possibility of increasing the UNSC even by one 
member.  They nevertheless ended up supporting Japan publicly 
while urging the GOJ to devise a strategy to achieve 
agreement on an overall reform of the council.  This was the 
wrong approach, Tsuruoka concluded: the U.S. has no interest 
in expanding the Security Council because having to visit 
even one more capital on a campaign for UNSC votes is 
unbearable to the U.S.  Now, Tsuruoka explained, Japan was 
going ahead on its own, and when it's clear to the U.S. that 
it needs to be eng 
aged, Washington will come around.  He continued that the GOJ 
needs to do two things: a) create momentum toward reform 
within the UNGA, and b) demonstrate to the international 
community that reform is a benefit. 
 
7.  (C) When asked what the consequences of failure might be 
for the U.S.-Japan relationship, Tsuruoka replied that 
resentment is possible, but the GOJ has been telling the 
Japanese public that the U.S. supports Japanese UNSC 
membership.  If the U.S. and Japan coordinate on this effort, 
we can say that we've done our best, even if the resolutions 
fail, and it will not be due to a U.S. failure but to the 
vagaries of the multilateral world.  But, this would depend 
on a U.S. decision to become engaged on Japan's behalf. 
 
 
8. (SBU) Participants 
 
U.S.: 
----- 
 
S/P Director Stephen Krasner 
S/P Member Evan Feigenbaum 
A/DCM James Zumwalt 
POLMIN David Shear 
 
Japan: 
------ 
 
DVFM Tsuneo Nishida 
DDG Koji Tsuruoka 
 
9.  (U)  S/P Krasner cleared this message. 
MICHALAK