Sunday, October 21 2007 @ 04:35 AM CDT
Contributed by: Y.Yamamoto
Views: 1,938
Say good-bye to the U.N. and these sociable gentlemen
This coming Wednesday marks the 62nd anniversary of the birth of the United
Nations. It was officially founded by 50 nations in San Francisco on October 24, 1945. Ever since its charter, organization, ways
of financing its activities, administrative rules, etc. have remained essentially unchanged
although the number of its member countries has grown to 192 and the 1971
hijacking of the Republic of China's privileged seat by the People's Republic
of China marked a stigmatic milestone. While the U.N. has been at a standstill,
the world has undergone a sea change through the two "Cold Wars." and 9-11.
Small wonder that nobody but China and Russia thinks it's still functioning,
and reparable if things go wrong at times.
Against this backdrop we have heard a myriad of empty words about reforming
the organization from the likes of Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon. Unfortunately,
though, they are the kind of people who have to reform themselves before
reforming someone else.
John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., is practically the only
exception who knows what he is talking about when addressing this issue.
Back in 2005, he said: "The Secretariat building in New York has 38
stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."
But his tenure as the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. didn't last long, essentially
because the outspoken U.S. envoy knew exactly what to do to make a big difference.
When I was in business, we called this the resistance to change. Every
time we were set to implement a reform program, people who had vested interests
in the status quo would desperately try to defend them and make believe
it was still reformable despite defects inherent to the "legacy system"
showing all over the place. Given this human nature, we thought that was really unavoidable.
The only thing we can expect is that a resolute person comes forward to
revolutionize things all on his own. He has learned from the history textbook that any revolution
in history started with destruction of the ancient regime. But he is also
to learn a lesson the hard way that trying to fix an unreformable body is a sheer waste
of time. · read more (749 words)
Sunday, August 07 2005 @ 12:39 AM CDT
Contributed by: Y.Yamamoto
Views: 2,023
On Tuesday, August 2, the Japan's bid for a permanent seat at the United
Nations Security Council was finally pronounced dead by China's U.N. ambassador
Wang Guangya and his new U.S. counterpart John Bolton.
According to a Daily Yomiuri's autopsy report written by staff writer Mr.
Osamu Kawakami on August 7, there were three causes of death:
1) Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura
were too optimistic in counting on support from their "closest friends" - George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice.
2) They were outmaneuvered by China especially in African and Caribbean
countries where the communist nation was very active in shouldering costs
entailed in the construction of parliamentary buildings and renovation
of cricket fields.
3) In a last-ditch effort the Japanese government, along with its G-4 allies,
tried to join forces with the wrong party, the African Union, when it dawned on it that it was unrealistic to expect votes from more than two-thirds of U.N. member countries without teaming up with a bigger group. · read more (594 words)
Thursday, May 19 2005 @ 10:41 AM CDT
Contributed by: Y.Yamamoto
Views: 1,577
The Koizumi government's and the media's obsession with a permanent seat
at the United Nations Security Council has already causing a paralysis
everywhere. It's that all too familiar paralysis the Japanese government
spreads over, like a highly contagious disease, whenever it pokes its nose
into an international affair.
For an understandable, and yet dubious, reason, the Japanese government has made known to the 191 member countries of the U.N. its aspiration for a UNSC permanent membership for quite sometime now. But the only party that are enthusiastic about Japan's UNSC bid is Kofi Annan aside from the Japan's government, its media lapdogs and 40-50% of the nation's general public. · read more (1,193 words)
Last week this blog ran a poll over whether to give Japan a permanent seat
at the UNSC. The vast majority of voters said, "No", "Don't
know", or "Couldn't care less" and not a single person answered
in the affirmative. Perhaps the poll privately-run on a blog like ours with a mere
160 people casting their casual votes didn't serve as a reliable indicator.
But at least outside this nation, there are very few people who are in
favor of the Japan's bid for the UNSC seat even after the Japan's PM addressed
the U.N. General Assembly on September 21.
· read more (505 words)
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly on September 21, Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi said Japan would seek to join the permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council, hand-in-hand with Germany, India and Brazil "to
create a new United Nations for the new era". To elaborate on his
bid for the permanent seat, he stressed the following points
at the General Assembly and the subsequent press conference:
· read more (600 words)
