JAPANESE and their leaders are frustrated at the country’s excessive financial contribution to the United Nations and its failure to secure a permanent seat on the Security Council, the country’s Foreign Minister told The Times.

In a rare expression of dissatisfaction with Japan’s closest ally, Nobutaka Machimura said that the US’s unexpected rejection of Tokyo’s plan for Security Council reform this year was a big problem.

“Their decision was made late and that was a big problem,” Mr Machimura said this week, in an exclusive interview with The Times at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo.

“[The financial] contribution to the United Nations basically should be in proportion to GDP — based on that the US should be bearing about 30 per cent. However . . . they are contributing 23 per cent, while Japan has been contributing 19.5 per cent.

“So yes, it is a disproportionately big contribution that we have been making. It shows our commitment and will to contribute to world peace, but it is true that many Japanese people and members of the Japanese Diet feel frustrated about this fact.”

Sixty years after the end of the Second World War, the world’s second richest country has begun to campaign in earnest for Security Council membership; the US’s seeming indifference to its aspirations is a blow to the Government of Junichiro Koizumi, the Prime Minister, who has been a stalwart supporter of President Bush.

Despite the difficulties of the US-led occupation of Iraq, and majority opposition to the invasion among the Japanese public, Mr Koizumi has presented himself not merely as an ally, but as a personal friend of the US President.

Japanese naval ships are supporting US operations in Afghanistan and there are 500 Japanese soldiers in southern Iraq, the country’s biggest and riskiest overseas mission in 60 years. Officially, the US supports a permanent place on the Security Council for Japan, but it rejects the only serious proposal to make it a reality — the so-called G4 plan, which would also give eventual veto power to Brazil, Germany and India.

Mr Machimura suffered a personal embarrassment in June when Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, abruptly informed him that the US would block the G4 plan, even as Japan was optimistically making plans with its three partners. Without US support the plan was dead in the water.

Mr Machimura gave a warning soon afterwards that “it is not difficult to imagine that public opinion will quickly turn in favour of slashing Japan’s contribution to the UN”.

Although no firm plans have been made to scale back Japan’s UN costs unilaterally, it is clear that the Japanese Government will lose its patience if a more equitable deal is not struck by the end of next year. At his speech to the UN General Assembly this month, Mr Machimura pointedly listed the huge sums which Japan has given to international good causes, including $5 billion promised for the reconstruction of Iraq, $1 billion in Afghanistan, and $5 billion to Africa. To add to Japan’s irritation, the UN Charter still refers to Japan, as well as Germany, as “enemy states”.

“We have a consensus [among UN member-states] that the make-up of the UN Security Council is not appropriate for the present day,” Mr Machimura said.

“It has not changed since 1945 and there is something wrong about that. This is the common understanding of the member states and this is the time for us to consider what the UNSC should be in the future.”

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