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Japan INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
United Nations
Japan regards international cooperation within the
United
Nations (UN) framework as a basic foreign policy
principle. When
Japan joined the UN in 1956, it did so with great
enthusiasm and
broad public support, for the international organization
was seen
to embody the pacifist country's hopes for a peaceful
world order.
Membership was welcomed by many Japanese who saw the UN as
a
guarantor of a policy of unarmed neutrality for their
nation. To
others, support for the UN would be useful in masking or
diluting
Japan's almost total dependence on the United States for
its
security. The government saw the UN as an ideal arena for
its riskminimizing , omnidirectional foreign policy.
After the late 1950s, Japan participated actively in
the social
and economic activities of the UN's various specialized
agencies
and other international organizations concerned with
social,
cultural, and economic improvement. During the 1970s, as
it
attained the status of an economic superpower, Japan was
called on
to play an increasingly large role in the UN. As Japan's
role
increased and its contributions to UN socioeconomic
development
activities grew, many Japanese began to ask whether their
country
was being given an international position of
responsibility
commensurate with its economic power. There was even some
sentiment, expressed as early as 1973, that Japan should
be given
a permanent seat on the UN Security Council with the
United States,
the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China.
By 1990 Japan's international cooperation efforts had
reached
a new level of involvement and activism. Japan contributed
about 11
percent of the regular UN budget, second only to the
United States,
which contributed 25 percent. Japan was particularly
active in UN
peacekeeping activities and in 1989, for the first time,
sent
officials to observe and participate in UN peacekeeping
efforts (in
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Namibia). Japan sent a small
team to
observe the February 1990 elections in Nicaragua. In
1992-93 Japan
led UN supervision of the peace process and elections in
Cambodia,
providing approximately 2,000 people, which included
members of the
SDF.
Data as of January 1994
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