China on Thursday confirmed that it will block any move to give Japan, India, Brazil and Germany permanent seats in an enlarged UN Security Council.
"This is a dangerous move and certainly China will oppose it," China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya (王光亞) told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. "It will split the house and destroy the unity and also derail the whole process of discussion on big UN reforms."
But Japan yesterday said that it still hoped to persuade China to accept a historic expansion of the Security Council on its terms.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said Japan would "further try to talk to the Chinese to seek their better understanding and contribution."
Japan will "try to seek their support" to reform the Security Council, he said.
China has opposed Japan being granted permanent status on the Security Council, demanding that it first correct its attitude to its wartime history. Tensions between the two countries have risen in recent months.
Brazil, Germany, India and Japan have formed a group, G4, to lobby for permanent seats on the Council.
It has circulated a draft resolution, which could be voted on at the UN General Assembly in September, proposing a 25-member Security Council, 10 more than now, with six new permanent members.
Wang said China leaned toward a rival plan, proposed by Italy, Mexico and Pakistan, to enlarge the Security Council to 25 members, but without additional veto-wielding members.
"We see many good points in their formula because this will expand the Security Council and this will give certain members who they believe are important a longer term," he said.
In the Italy-Mexico-Pakistan plan, non-permanent members could be re-elected at the end of their two-year stints on the Security Council, unlike the current practice.
The G4 nations plan to put their motion to the General Assembly if they are certain they will get the support of two-thirds of the 191 UN members so that it will be passed.
The text does not say which countries should become permanent members but proposes two for Asia, two for Africa, one for Western Europe and one for Latin America.
Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe would each get one of the new non-permanent seats.
India, Japan, Germany and Brazil say that new permanent members should have the same right to veto a resolution as the current five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US. But the US opposes extending the veto.
China cannot technically block a motion put to the General Assembly, but it could kill it off later. The change to the Security Council would also require changes to the UN charter. This would have to be passed by the parliaments of two-thirds of the UN members, including the five permanent members. Altering the charter is the fourth stage in the G4 plan.
Wang said, "I hope it will not come to the fourth stage."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan hopes a showdown can be avoided.
"Ideally, consensus is what one should aim for, but if that were to fail and there is a broad agreement, one should be able to vote," he said.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS