By The Diplomat | Created at 2026-09-30 00:41:51 | Updated at 2026-09-30 02:27:31
11 hours ago
On September 22, Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae addressed the United Nations General Assembly. She argued that Japan has become deeply embedded in the postwar international order over the past 70 years and has made significant contributions to it. Japan, she maintained, should no longer be constrained by the so-called “enemy state clauses” in the United Nations Charter. She therefore renewed Japan’s call for the U.N. to initiate the process of removing them.
The so-called “enemy state clauses” are mainly contained in Articles 53, 77, and 107 of the U.N. Charter. They preserve special provisions concerning states that were enemies of the charter’s signatories during World War II. For Japan, these provisions have long been seen as a lingering reminder of its status as a defeated Axis power.
Japan’s call is not new. In 1995, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 50/52 with 155 votes in favor (China included), zero against and three abstentions, expressing its intention to initiate the procedure under Article 108 of the charter to delete the “enemy state clauses.” Ten years later, the 2005 World Summit Outcome, which was adopted without a vote, again declared that the references to “enemy states clauses” should be deleted. Yet the process subsequently stalled, and the charter itself has never been formally amended to remove the provisions.
In other words, the “enemy state clauses” have been widely regarded as obsolete, and the international community has repeatedly expressed its intention to remove them. Yet they remain formally embedded in the U.N. Charter. Some international lawyers therefore regard them as effectively obsolete or inoperative, while others maintain that their continued presence in the charter cannot simply be ignored.
The issue has acquired renewed political significance as Sino-Japanese relations have deteriorated. Chinese officials have linked the clauses to Japan’s historical responsibility and its current security policies, while Tokyo maintains that the provisions are outdated and inconsistent with Japan’s position in the international community.
There is also a practical obstacle. Amending the U.N. Charter is subject to a particularly demanding procedure. Under Article 108, an amendment must be adopted by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and ratified by two-thirds of U.N. members in accordance with their respective constitutional procedures, including all permanent members of the Security Council. This means that any formal amendment cannot bypass the permanent members of the Security Council, including China and Russia. In practical terms, therefore, the removal of the clauses would require a degree of political consensus that has so far proved elusive.
The political meaning of the clauses may therefore be more important than the words themselves. To understand the dispute, it is useful to recall the historical context in which the U.N. Charter was created. The charter reflected the international order that emerged from World War II and the victorious powers’ vision of how future international security should be organized. Its provisions concerning the former enemy states were designed in the context of preventing defeated powers such as Germany and Japan from again disrupting the new security order.
Japan, meanwhile, returned to the international community after accepting the postwar settlement and has since become an important contributor to the U.N. system. Over the decades, it has participated extensively in peacekeeping, development assistance and international organizations. So, can the “enemy state clauses” therefore still be considered appropriate today? Should contemporary Japan continue to bear restrictions that originated in the actions of a previous generation?
China clearly believes Japan still has work to do in this regard. In response to Takaichi’s remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun argued that what Japan does matters more than what it says. He linked the issue to Japan’s understanding of its wartime aggression, its current defense policies, and the stability of the postwar international order. China maintains that the “enemy state clauses” continue to have relevance as institutional safeguards against the resurgence of fascism and militarism.
For Japan, however, the removal of the clauses may represent more than the elimination of an obsolete legal provision. It may also symbolize international recognition of Japan’s transformation from a defeated power into a “normal” member of the international community – and, more broadly, its effort to move beyond aspects of the postwar system. This becomes particularly significant when viewed alongside Takaichi’s call for reform of the U.N. Security Council. In the same speech, she argued that the UNSC’s current structure still reflects the international situation of 1945 and called for an expansion of both permanent and non-permanent membership.
The dispute over the “enemy state clauses,” therefore, is not simply a disagreement over whether an outdated provision should be deleted. It reflects two different understandings of the postwar international order. From Japan’s perspective, the central question is whether the international institutional framework should continue to reflect the geopolitical realities of 1945, or whether it should recognize the country Japan has become over the past eight decades.
From China’s perspective, however, the postwar order is not merely a set of outdated institutional arrangements. It also embodies historical memory and political understandings concerning Japan’s wartime conduct and its subsequent role in Asia. This is why the “enemy state clauses” remain politically significant even though their practical application has long been regarded as highly unlikely.
The controversy between China and Japan over the clauses therefore reveals a broader disagreement about the meaning of the postwar order. Even if Japan succeeds in removing the relevant language from the charter, the broader question of how Japan’s postwar identity is understood in Asia will not disappear with it. If Tokyo wants the “enemy state clauses” to become irrelevant not merely in legal terms but also in political terms, persuading U.N. members that the provisions are obsolete will not be enough. Japan will also need to convince its Asian neighbors, particularly those that experienced Japanese aggression, that the historical and political foundations of the postwar order can be reconciled with Japan’s evolving international role.
That is unlikely to happen overnight. The “enemy state clauses” may be remnants of a bygone era, but the debate surrounding them remains an important reflection of the unresolved political differences between China and Japan over history, identity, and the postwar international order.
