Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN
Statement on Security Council Reform
Presented to the 52nd Session of the UN General Assembly, 62nd Plenary Meeting, Thursday, December 4, 1997
Agenda item 59:
Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and related matters
Our discussions on Security Council reform over the last four years have resulted in two clear, if somewhat contradictory, conclusions. First, there is little doubt that the majority of Member States consider the current composition and working methods of the Security Council archaic and unsatisfactory. Secondly, it is, unfortunately, equally clear that, notwithstanding this widely held view, there are few prospects for early progress. The key difficulties arise from the many contradictions and ambiguities in the positions that the current permanent members have taken on Security Council reform; and, of course, the Charter gives them a decisive influence.
My delegation has on a number of previous occasions publicly analysed these contradictions and ambiguities. I will not repeat in detail what we have already exposed. I refer members to my delegation's statements in the Open-ended Working Group on Security Council reform of 5 and 9 May and most recently to my Minister's statement in this Hall on 29 September.
A central issue is the failure of the current permanent members to clearly pronounce themselves on whether a new permanent member, be it from an industrialized or a developing country, should have the veto. The power of a new permanent member is not a question that can be deferred to a later date merely to make it easier to select new permanent members. This is because the powers of the new permanent members are intrinsic to the very notion and definition of permanent membership.
We did not expect answers to the questions that we posed, and we have not received any satisfactory answer. We are not particularly disappointed. Resolving the ambiguities is not just a matter of negotiating a text in a working group. It is not just a question of clever drafting or diplomatic ingenuity to paper over differences. The ambiguities reflect profound geopolitical uncertainties that can be settled only over time by events in the real world, and not in any working group.
This ought to be obvious if we consider the origins of the current permanent membership. The countries that are permanent members were the victors of the Second World War. They gave themselves the privilege of the veto because they were then so essential to the maintenance of international peace and security that they had to be reassured that they could not be compelled to take any action that could lead to conflicts among themselves. This would have broken up the United Nations.
At the end of the Second World War, it was relatively easy to determine the identity of these powerful few. With most of the world in ruins after a long and devastating conflict, it was easy to discern the winners and losers. It was logical that the victors should bear the primary responsibility for maintaining the new international order. In any case, there was no choice. No one else was in a position to successfully argue against their claims. Their status as permanent members reflected the compelling geopolitical realities of the day.
Nevertheless, even then two of the three big victors - the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom were sceptical of Roosevelt's view of China's ability to play a major role in the post-war world, and Churchill's insistence on including France among the elite group met with similar scepticism from Roosevelt and Stalin. It should not therefore surprise us that we now run into even greater difficulties in trying to decide who belongs in the new elite.
The end of the cold war took everybody by surprise. Its resolution was far from clear-cut. The end of the cold war has precipitated a period of transition and uncertainty. We are still debating the consequences because we are still living through them. It is of course obvious that the world has changed, but this does not in itself prescribe any particular new geopolitical configuration. The power structure of the post-cold-war international order is still evolving. The outcome of this process cannot as yet be predicted. The United Nations, as an Organization of sovereign States, must necessarily reflect international reality more than shape it, whatever else some may pretend to believe. But even this incontrovertible fact provides no practical guidance for our discussions on Security Council reform.
If the purpose of Security Council reform is to more accurately reflect the post-cold-war world, then, logically, there should now be only one permanent member. Only the United States now disposes of the political, military and economic clout on the global scale needed to maintain international peace and security. But, of course, it is politically unacceptable to have only one permanent member. And even the United States, in its post-cold-war mood of introspection, faces domestic political difficulties in exercising its undoubted capabilities. The Administration's failure to persuade Congress to pay its arrears to the United Nations is but one small symptom.
Even a cursory examination of the current situation of the other permanent members may lead us to wonder what real meaning permanent membership has in the contemporary situation of geopolitical flux and uncertainty. Russia's main preoccupations are internal, and understandably so. Given the serious problems that it is grappling with, Russia has neither the capability nor the desire to consistently exercise power on a global scale as the Soviet Union did. Russia will certainly rise again, but it will be a different Russia with global interests and relationships different from those of the Soviet Union.
China is already a rising Power, but it is still primarily a regional Power. In per capita terms it will be a poor country well into the next century. Its focus is on economic development and resolving urgent internal problems. Its primary international interest for many years to come will be to secure peace and stability around its immediate borders so that it can continue to grow and deal with its internal problems. It will not be as deeply engaged elsewhere.
The United Kingdom and France are now European Powers with at best only residual global influence and limited clout outside the European Union. The sad recent history of Bosnia demonstrated that even the most powerful European States were not capable of settling a European problem by themselves. It was the intervention of the United States that proved decisive, and the United States chose the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), not the United Nations Security Council, as the vehicle for its intervention.
It is clear that most of the current permanent members no longer have the will or the capability to exercise power on the global scale necessary to maintain international peace and security as envisaged by the Charter. It is a geopolitical reality that in present times several current permanent members are not permanent members because they are great Powers or global Powers in the traditional sense of these terms. By a reversal of logic, if they currently enjoy the status of a great or a global Power, it is primarily because they are already permanent members.
Before I am drowned out by howls of protest, let me hastily make my position clear. I am not suggesting that Security Council reform requires that any current permanent member be relegated to the common herd. Of course, the consequences of such a suggestion are too horrifying to contemplate, especially for the countries that will be directly affected. So let it be placed on the record that I accept and respect the historical fait accompli, even if its logic is no longer compelling. I recognize the useful and constructive roles that many current permanent members continue to play in international affairs. And even if these are not the roles for which they were originally given permanent status, they deserve our appreciation.
My point is simply that these are different roles. These are no longer unique roles that no other country is capable of assuming. Several other Members of the United Nations already play similar roles without any ambition of elevation to permanent status.
Perhaps our discussion on Security Council reform would progress a little better if we temporarily abandon futile arguments over number and identity for a more fundamental re-examination of the meaning of permanent membership in the last years of the twentieth century. Let us examine what is really needed to maintain international peace and security in the twenty-first century. This is why my delegation had suggested, as early as the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly four years ago, that our discussions on Security Council reform should begin with an examination of the criteria for permanent membership. We are encouraged that several other delegations appear to be coming around to this view.
Our essential point can be stated simply. A reformed Security Council must reflect the post-cold-war geopolitical configuration if it is to be effective. The crucial decisions that will affect this geopolitical configuration are not going to be made in New York, or even in London, Paris, Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Berlin or Tokyo. It is not even clear that the geopolitical configuration can be shaped by a conscious and planned process of decision-making. The post-cold-war geopolitical configuration is going to emerge only gradually, over time, through the interactions of different countries in different regions of the world. It will be shaped by developments that cannot yet be predicted, developments which will probably surprise even those countries whose policies precipitated them. We will only waste time if we continue to pretend, as we unfortunately too often have for the last four years, that we can gather in a room in New York to decide the twenty-first century's geopolitical power structure through abstract intellectual debates.
Let me conclude by illustrating the point more concretely. My delegation has on several occasions commented on the studied ambiguity with which several, if not the majority, of the current permanent members have cloaked crucial aspects of their position on Security Council reform. This is understandable. No country is ever comfortable with a change in a status quo that favours it. But, that said, I must also acknowledge that a majority of the permanent members have appeared most categoric in their desire to see Japan and Germany as new permanent members. Let me therefore take that as the starting point of my illustration.
Many countries, certainly, including my own and perhaps even a majority of Member States, would agree that when general agreement is reached on the expansion of the Security Council, Japan and Germany should be among the new permanent members. That Japan and Germany now exercise global economic clout is not in dispute. Nor is the fact that they want and are searching for a bigger international political role. These are positive developments. They are among the new realities whose consequences have yet to unfold.
But precisely because of this, there is still no clear consensus, either in Germany or Japan or in their respective regions, on the precise international roles they should play, particularly if this will involve the deployment of military forces. There has never been a period in the entire sweep of Asian history in which China and Japan have been simultaneously strong Powers. We are now entering such a period, with all its attendant uncertainties. In Europe, a newly unified Germany and a Russia that is still struggling to redefine itself apart from the former Soviet Union are both, for different reasons, currently internally preoccupied. Neither has yet definitively settled their relationship with each other or with their neighbours.
It is therefore not surprising that China and Russia, like all other permanent members, have not been clear on whether or not Japan and Germany should have the veto. It is therefore still unclear whether they really believe Germany and Japan should be new permanent members and this even though Japan and Germany enjoy widespread support for permanent membership from many other Member States.
I am not suggesting that Moscow and Beijing are being particularly difficult or different. After all, even the United States has not yet clearly stated that it trusts its own treaty allies, whose elevation to permanent status it strongly and publicly advocates, sufficiently to give them a veto over American policies. And even if the Administration is willing to do so, I am not sure Congress would agree.
This hesitation and coyness is perhaps only prudent. Perhaps it is even a duty, given the geopolitical uncertainties of the contemporary international system. Nobody wants to give any hostages to fortune. For the same reason, no Government that really believes that its country deserves permanent status can permanently commit all future governments to giving up the veto. The geopolitical uncertainties are no less elsewhere in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They will certainly not be settled by conceptually contradictory slogans such as permanent rotational membership, as has been suggested by some.
I hope I am not misunderstood. I am not suggesting that China and Japan cannot cooperate or that Germany and Russia will never coexist. This is obviously not true, because they are already doing so. But the present happy situation is not to be taken for granted given the long, complex and often troubled history of relations between these countries - a history that, in the case of China and Japan, has been characterized by many centuries of profound ambiguity. It is not unreasonable for countries that enjoy the privileges of the status quo to prefer to avoid making precipitate decisions. In fact, this is an entirely reasonable position to take given the geopolitical uncertainties. It would therefore be equally unreasonable to expect Asia, Africa or Latin America to take precipitate decisions on who from their regions should enjoy permanent status.
Time and events will clarify matters. How much time, no one can presently honestly say. Events must mature and unfold naturally to clarify themselves. This is not a process that can or should be rushed.
We would do the United Nations and the Security Council grievous damage if we were to take decisions that might eventually bear only a tenuous relationship to what finally evolves in the real world. Any international organization of sovereign States dooms itself to irrelevance it ignores or divorces itself from the realities in which it is embedded. And the shape of those realities can be only imperfectly glimpsed at present. This is why we, like other Non-Aligned Movement countries, have been, consistent in cautioning against a hasty decision on Security Council reform. A Security Council that includes all who now most assiduously press their claims to permanent status, but excludes other, currently not so obvious candidates whose claims may yet become compelling, would not just be ineffective. It would tear this Organization apart.
Four years is not a long time, given the gravity of the issues at stake. We understand the frustrations of those who see their hopes and ambitions recede with each passing year of endless debate. But pressure-cooking the process will not settle the crucial geopolitical realities that will, in the end, be decisive. Those countries that deserve permanent status will be given it when the time is ripe, not before. And when the time is ripe, there is no power that can resist their claims. Let us therefore not lose faith or patience and by so doing come to regret the consequences.
