9
resolutions.” During a television address to the people of Japan, Koizumi justified his
support of the invasion by emphasizing that, “We will dedicate our efforts to obtaining
public understanding of the importance of our alliance with the United States and the
importance of international cooperation.”
17
Tokyo’s support of the invasion of Iraq
without international sanction shows that it has moved decisively away from Japan’s
historical commitment to the legitimacy of the U.N. security system and that, in trying to
stay in the good graces of the United States, it viewed this as acceptable behavior for a
state aspiring to be recognized as a normal country.
Thus, Japan’s quest to become a normal country has fallen sharply off the course
that had been designed in the early 1990s. Then, the U.N. system was the nucleus around
which plans to become a normal country were being crafted by conservative thinkers who
believed that as a wealthy industrial country Japan had to move beyond economics and
enter the real world of post-Cold War international security. In the mid 1990s, Tokyo
promoted Japan’s bid to become a permanent member of the Security Council largely on
the notion that as an economic superpower and a major financial contributor to the United
Nations, it could help steer the world toward nuclear disarmament because of its
commitment to pacifism and the abolition of nuclear weapons.
18
More recently, however, this has changed. In June 2004, an advisory panel
recommended to Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi that the number of
permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council should be increased and that, at minimum,
a country that does not possess nuclear arms should occupy one of them, the suggestion
being that it should be Japan.
19
Although this is what the Japanese press reported, it is not
what Koizumi told the U.N. General Assembly three months later. In September 2004,
Convention