Global Policy Forum

By Joseph Kahn

A grass-roots Chinese campaign to keep Japan out of the United Nations Security Council has gathered some 22 million signatures, increasing the chances that China will block Japan's bid to join the elite group, organizers and analysts said Thursday. The petition effort, conducted through popular Chinese Web sites, enjoys tacit support from the government, which has allowed state-controlled media to cover the campaign prominently.

Japan is expected to be among several nations granted a permanent seat on a revamped Security Council under a plan that could come up for a vote in September. As one of the five existing permanent members, China has the power to veto the proposal. It has not said how it plans to vote. If China were to prevent Japan's elevation, it would be the most direct confrontation between Asia's leading powers since they re-established diplomatic ties in 1972.

Relations between the countries have sharply deteriorated in recent weeks, strained by competition for energy resources, disputes over the way history textbooks assess Japan's role in World War II, Japan's pledge to aid the United States in defending Taiwan and the recent incursion of a Chinese submarine into Japanese waters.

By allowing millions of people to sign their names to a petition against Japan, Beijing's new leadership seems determined to show that recent Japanese actions have so inflamed popular sentiment that China has no choice but to adopt a tougher diplomatic line. Officials may also see the petition as leverage to force concessions from Japan as the price of admission to the Security Council. It could also serve as cover for a veto, which would be one of the most bold assertions of Chinese authority in many years. But the campaign has the potential to restrict China's diplomatic leeway, making it harder to reach a quiet compromise. China could also feel pressured to veto the whole United Nations overhaul if the plan promotes Japan, an unusual position for a country that has rarely used its veto power to oppose an international consensus.

"China must vote no and not just abstain," said Tong Zeng, a longtime organizer of efforts to force Japan to recognize and apologize for World War II atrocities. "The government may not want to take the lead, but the Chinese people have taken the lead." In Tokyo, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, "The Chinese government has said the U.N. needs reform, so we believe that the Chinese and Japanese governments both have the same type of feeling and thinking on this issue." "The petition itself is being conducted by private citizens and, according to press reports, the same petitioners' names keep appearing," the spokesman, Hatsuhisa Takashima, said. "So we just don't know how valid this petition effort is."

The effort to rally anti-Japan sentiment in China began in late February, when several overseas Web sites began circulating a petition directed at the United Nations, which is currently debating a blueprint for changing its governing structure. It gathered momentum last week when leading Chinese Web sites, including portals like Sina, Sohu and Netease, advertised the drive with links on their main pages. Some sites allow users to register their names through text messages sent from mobile phones.

After initially aiming to collect one million signatures, organizers now say they think they can gather 30 million before they present the petition to Secretary General Kofi Annan. The New China News Agency reported Thursday that 22.2 million Chinese had signed the petition so far. "The response was far beyond our expectations," said Lu Yunfei, who has led several grass-roots protests against Japan. "No one - not the United Nations nor the Chinese government - can ignore so many people expressing their views." There was no way to independently verify whether 22 million people had in fact signed the petition or whether they all did so voluntarily. But many Web sites kept their own tallies of how many people had signed up through their portal, and there were no telltale indications that the effort had been centrally organized.

Chinese officials have not explicitly endorsed the petition, but they have offered supportive comments. Liu Jianchao, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said this week that the effort reflected growing alarm about Japan's treatment of history. "Japan has to take a responsible attitude toward history to build trust among the people of Asia, including China," he said. He added that China believed that the United Nations overhaul should mainly focus on increasing the power of developing countries rather than the rich industrialized ones.

Japan has the world's second-largest economy and is one of the largest financial contributors to the United Nations. The United States has backed Japan's demand to become a Security Council member. Mr. Annan appeared to signal that Japan and Germany would be prime candidates for a revised Security Council lineup when he discussed plans to remake the governing structure last week. The council should "increase the involvement in decision-making of those who contribute most to the United Nations financially, militarily and diplomatically, specifically in terms of contributions to United Nations assessed budgets," he told reporters.

Japan and Germany are by far the largest contributors that do not have permanent seats on the Security Council. Japan has said it will cut its contributions if it does not get a seat. North and South Korea, which were colonized by Japan, have already said that they oppose Japan's bid. They argue that Tokyo has not done as much as Germany to atone for its imperialist abuses and that it cannot become a leading member of the international community unless it addresses the legacy of mistrust among its neighbors.

China, which has historically sought to keep relations with Japan on an even keel, has officially remained neutral. The two countries have a robust trading relationship. China last year replaced the United States as Japan's largest export market, and China's strong growth has helped pull the sluggish Japanese economy out of recession. But Beijing has also encouraged anti-Japanese sentiment. Textbooks, newspapers and government-sponsored films emphasize China's suffering after the 1935 Japanese invasion. They largely gloss over the improvement in relations, including generous Japanese aid packages, that occurred after the two sides re-established relations.

China often uses public opinion as a diplomatic lever. Its news media stirred up an anti-American frenzy after a United States spy plan collided with a Chinese fighter and crash-landed on Chinese soil in 2001. But when the crisis passed, news coverage resumed a more neutral tone. Managing sentiment about Japan is trickier, partly because there is a deeper reservoir of resentment against Japan left over from the war. Mr. Tong, the organizer, says the police have begun allowing people to take part in small-scale anti-Japanese activities rather than repressing them in the name of social stability as they once did. But he said that did little to satisfy popular demands for a tougher approach to Japan. "There has never before been a petition campaign of this magnitude in China," he said. "It will be much harder for the government to suppress in the future."

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