Japan raises its UN presence to counter China's influence – DW – 12/18/2025
www.dw.com
Japan is taking a greater interest in the United Nations as fears grow that rival nations, including China, are using the organization for their own ends.

A record number of Japanese nationals are working for United Nations agencies around the world.

This growth is the outcome of a five-year plan to install experts in key positions in the sprawling international organization and to counter what Tokyo perceives as China using the UN to exert greater influence over other nations.

While the experts, analysts and bureaucrats who work for the UN are meant to be non-partisan in their decision-making, Japan is among the nations that have become concerned that instead of remaining neutral, China is utilizing the UN to further its own geopolitical aims.

Some Japanese observers say that while Beijing uses vast amounts of aid to woo developing nations and is rapidly expanding its military capabilities, diplomacy through a multilateral organization such as the UN gives it another tool with which to sway other nations.

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  • Subscript5676@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    What the Japanese have observed is what I’m seeing too. China is using every tool in the shed to try to establish itself as a superpower at the expense of others.

    China will use international platforms to berate others for things that they’re happy to do themselves, regardless if others call them out on their hypocrisy. They’ll cry to the UN when nations that they don’t yet have great leverage over slaps them on the hand near their backyard, like when their dangerous ships get confiscated.

    They are pouring money into developing nations like Pakistan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and have been trying to do the same with many other Southeast Asian countries, while simultaneously getting in a conflicts with them over the South China Sea. This seems contradicting, but my take is that their goal is to secure their trade route from being blockaded in case of a more heated conflict, e.g. a war. They may be building out roads and highways in their Belt & Road Initiative, but maritime trade is still the most cost-effective option, and it would be terrible to be cut off from that, or if they need to make large detours.

    Coming back on topic, I don’t like the fact that there are nations with more saying at any given international platform, be it the US, China, or Japan, be it because of whatever reason. But it also says something about these platforms, either that they haven’t scrutized themselves sufficiently, or that even Japan have come to think that the UN has failed in its non-partisaness that they’re taking matters into their own hands.

    This timeline sucks.