Japan joined the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member on Sunday, beginning a two-year term amid growing calls for reform of the world body after its failure to stop Russian aggression in Ukraine, the report said. Kyodo News.
Tokyo occupies a non-permanent seat on the Council, tasked with ensuring international peace and security, for the 12th time since it became a member of the United Nations in 1956, following its previous term in 2016-2017.
Japan holds the council’s rotating monthly presidency for January, at a time when the 15-member council has failed to take effective action against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches, with permanent members Russia and China, a key Northern benefactor, exercising their veto power.
The five permanent members, all of them nuclear powers, also include the United States, Britain and France.
The UN Security Council observes a minute’s silence for former Chinese President Jiang
Japan has long expressed its ambition to become a permanent member of a reformed Security Council, along with countries like Germany, India and Brazil.
The world’s third largest economy won an annual election in June in the General Assembly, made up of 193 countries, for five of the 10 non-permanent seats on the Security Council along with Mozambique, Ecuador, Switzerland and Malta.
The five nations were joined by Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and the United Arab Emirates, replacing India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway.
In a speech delivered at the General Assembly in New York in September, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida stated that Japan, as a member of the Security Council, intends to “take steps to strengthen the rule of law in the international community by listening.” not only to the big voices, but also by being attentive to the small voices».
Japan holds the council’s rotating monthly presidency for January, at a time when the 15-member council has failed to take effective action against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Takahiro Shinyo, a professor of international politics at Kwansei Gakuin University, told Kyodo News that Japan’s ability to help stop Russia and China’s “high-handedness” will be “put to the test” after becoming a non-permanent member of the Council.
Shinyo, once a member of Japan’s permanent mission to the United Nations and ambassador to Germany, also said Tokyo could advance discussions on threats to Pyongyang’s security by calling emergency meetings.
For Japanese diplomacy, the year 2023 is important, as the country will host a G7 summit in May in the western Japanese city of Hiroshima, devastated by the world’s first atomic bombing in 1945.
