Japan to cut its financial support to U.N.

Tokyo - Japan, the second-largest financial contributor to the United Nations, plans to cut its support by one-quarter in coming years, senior foreign policy makers said.

Japanese diplomats calculate that Japan's gross domestic product accounts for only 14.4 percent of the global economy. But Japan pays 19.5 percent of the United Nations budget, or almost $1 billion a year. By contrast, the United States accounts for 30 percent of world gross domestic product, but pays only 22 percent.

"Japan cannot just give sweet faces to everybody," Yukio Okamoto, chairman of the prime minister's Task Force on Foreign Relations, said in an interview here on Monday. "We have to question: Why are we the only country in the world with inflated cost on our shoulders?"

Japan's planned cuts are partly motivated by the nation's worsening financial condition. After a decade of economic stagnation, Japanese taxes will barely cover one half of this year's nearly $700 billion budget. Bonds will be printed and sold to cover the rest.

"Japan's fiscal situation is worse than Italy's," Mr. Okamoto said from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's office.

Moving on programs with weak constituencies, politicians have cut Japan's overall foreign aid budget over the last three years by 15.5 percent, or $1.3 billion. Last year, for the first time in recent memory, Japan ceded the title of world's largest donor of foreign aid to the United States.

At the United Nations, Japanese officials say they are angry that the world body has failed them on two counts.

First, they say, United Nations diplomats were happy to have Japan pay one-fifth of the budget but were never moved to take the basic diplomatic step of removing a clause from the United Nations' founding charter that describes Japan as a "former enemy" nearly six decades after the end of World War II.

"The `enemy' clause — no Japanese can understand why the U.N. continues such symbolism," Mr. Okamoto said.

Second, they say, Japan, which has the world's second-largest economy, has been frustrated in its bid to win a permanent seat on the United Nation's Security Council.

"We should get a seat on the Security Council and abolition of the enemy clause in the U.N. charter," Hatsuhisa Takashima, a Japanese foreign ministry spokesman, said today. "No taxation without representation is the basic idea."

Japan's $1 billion slice of the United Nation's budget is more than the combined payments of four out of five of the permanent members of the Security Council: Britain, China, France and Russia. Only the United States pays more.

One United Nations official here who asked not to be identified said that cutting support would not help Japan's Security Council bid, arguing: "If their quest is for the Security Council seat, it is not smart politics. They are not creating an image that Japan is a team player."

Since hitting a peak in 2000 of 20.5 percent of the United Nations budget, Japan's share has dropped one percentage point. Now, Mr. Takashima said, the goal is to negotiate further reductions during this decade to reach parity with Japan's portion of world economic activity, 14.4 percent.

Calling for moving from "money diplomacy" to "real contributions" Mr. Okamoto cited as an example of Japanese contributions the peacekeeping troops sent to East Timor.

Samuel Koo, director of Unicef's office here, said that cuts by Japan "would be extremely severe, they would send the wrong signals." Noting that Japan is to play host to a conference on African development in November, he added: "A lot of countries look to Japan, they follow Japan's initiative."

Noting that Japan now pays 10 percent of Unicef's budget, he said: "From Unicef's point of view, funding cuts by Japan would be extremely severe." -- New York Times

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