The new US administrations subtle shift in stand to back the move to expand UN Security Council membership last Thursday has triggered some high stakes diplomacy in New York with China now increasingly identifying itself with the Coffee Club countries to block expansion in the permanent category. With enough indications that Barack Obamas trusted aide Susan Rice now US Permanent Representative at the UN would signal more openness to UNSC expansion,China attended three closed-door meetings this month of the Coffee Club countries,now known as United for Consensus (UfC),to strategise ways to block the renewed effort. Pakistan,Italy,Argentina,Korea and Canada are among the prominent UfC members intending to block increase in the permanent category. Its learnt that Chinese representatives attended two meetings in Rome on February 4-5 and then on February 10 to exchange notes on efforts being made across capitals. Being a permanent UNSC member,Beijing had not openly identified with either of the camps on this issue until last September when they attended a UfC meeting in New York. This was prompted by UNSC president Miguel dEscoto Brockmann placing a deadline for inter-governmental discussions to begin by February 2009. The deadline has now been met with the UN nominating Afghan Ambassador Zahir Tanin to start talks on each aspect of permanent membership in a time-bound manner. This decision coupled with the change in Washington saw UfC getting active early this month. Tanin,in fact,has held one short meeting and substantive talks would begin in March first week. According to reliable sources,China has been working hard on African countries to prevent a consensus on this issue. Based on discussions with key UfC members like Pakistan and Italy,China is said to have redoubled its efforts at the Africa Union Summit on February 1-3. The first assessment of this effort was given in the UfC meetings in Rome. At the February 10 meeting,sources said,China claimed to the UfC that as many as 23 African countries were open to supporting the UfC proposal for expansion by 10 members only in the non-permanent category. India,Germany,Brazil and Japan are pushing for adding six members in the permanent category besides increasing the overall size of the UNSC to 25. The UfC met again on February 13,a week ahead of the informal plenary,to discuss strategies. Here again,sources said,China participated in the meeting where it was agreed that all must be done to scuttle the issue at this stage and not allow this to proceed to voting in the UNGA where the going could get tough for the UfC. With this in view,they agreed to push for the principle nothing is agreed till everything is agreed as opposed to the issue-by-issue agreement being pursued by the UNSC president. In all,the next few months will see hectic diplomacy on this issue with the G4 countries lobbying hard to ensure that inter-governmental discussions conclude before the UNGA in September so that voting is possible.
