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.
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