ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CONCLUDES VISIT TO CHINA AND JAPAN

7 March 1996

Press Release
GA/9053

ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT CONCLUDES VISIT TO CHINA AND JAPAN

19960307 TOKYO, 6 March (UN Information Centre) -- The President of the General Assembly, Professor Diogo Freitas do Amaral (Portugal), undertaking his first official travel away from Headquarters since his election last September, today concluded his four-day official visits to China and Japan.

The Assembly President's programme in Beijing on 3 and 4 March included a meeting with President Jiang Zemin at the Great Hall of the People, and an extended working session with Vice-Foreign Minister Li Zhao Xing. The President's discussions in China focused on the process of reform of the United Nations, bearing in mind the important role that falls on China in this connection, by virtue of its permanent membership in the Security Council and its closeness to the concerns of developing countries which comprise a majority of the Organization's membership. The Chines authorities set out in detail to the Assembly President their thinking on reform of the Assembly and of the Security Council.

While in Tokyo on 5 and 6 March, he conferred with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and had an in-depth discussion with Foreign Minister Yukihiko Ikeda. He also met with the President of the Parliamentarians' League for Support of the United Nations, Susumu Nikaido, and with the leadership of the United Nations Association of Japan. He visited the United Nations University and the United Nations Information Centre in Tokyo.

Prime Minister Hashimoto informed the President that, in response to a letter which Mr. Freitas do Amaral had addressed to heads of State and/or government of Member States of the Organization, Japan would make its best efforts to pay as soon as possible the residual balance of its assessed contribution to the United Nations regular budget for 1996, once the Diet adopted a national budget.

The President and his hosts in Japan discussed at length various aspects of the process of reform of the United Nations, including the financial aspect, Security Council enlargement, and restructuring the economic and social area. The convening in Tokyo of an International Conference on Development Strategies on 21 and 22 March was a demonstration of Japan's recognition of the importance of the latter.

In all of his discussion, both in China and Japan, the President of the General Assembly emphasized the following three main aspects of the reform process:

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-- The area of principles and objectives, which concerns the working groups on the Agenda for Peace and on the Agenda for Development;

-- Ways to achieve the objectives, which is the focus of the working group on the financial situation. Past arrears and setting the basis for the financial future of the Organization are the two elements in this issue; and

-- Structural adjustment, to prepare the Organization for the twenty- first century. This concerns the working groups on the Security Council and on the strengthening of the Organization, including the General Assembly, the Secretariat and other bodies within the United Nations system.

The President said that the reform process, which involved the broad membership of the Organization, could now enter a more intensive and concrete phase of discussion with the tabling in recent weeks of three specific proposals, by the European Union, the United States and Japan. Proposals were still expected from other Member States.

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