Japan is not qualified to be a permanent member of the United Nations (UN) Security Council, Chinese Ministry pf Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
Mao's remarks echoed the speech of Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the UN, at the General Assembly's annual debate on Security Council reform on Tuesday. Fu stressed that Japan is in no position to demand permanent membership.
"Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council bears the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. During World War II, Japan waged wars of aggression that inflicted profound suffering upon the peoples of Asia and the world. To this day, Japan has failed to reflect on its wartime crimes thoroughly. Some individuals continue to propagate a wrong historical perspective of World War II, visit the Yasukuni Shrine, and distort, deny, or even glorify the history of aggression," said Mao.
"Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently made blatantly erroneous remarks concerning Taiwan, crudely interfering in China's internal affairs, trampling on international law and basic norms of international relations, and challenging the post-WWII international order. Such a country cannot shoulder the responsibility of maintaining international peace and security and is unqualified to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council," the spokeswoman continued.
Japan unqualified for permanent seat on UN Security Council: spokeswoman
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at around 1.25 percent after concluding its two-day monetary policy meeting on Friday.
The widely expected decision came after the central bank raised the key rate by 0.25 percentage points to a 31-year high of 1.25 percent at its previous policy meeting in September.
In its quarterly economic outlook report released after the meeting, the BOJ said that with the policy interest rate now higher than in the past, it is important to examine how financial conditions change under such circumstances.
The BOJ also said that Japan's underlying inflation has "generally" reached its 2 percent price stability target, nearly 14 years after the goal was set as part of efforts to end decades of deflation.
At a post-meeting press conference, BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda said the central bank's monetary policy will increasingly focus on keeping underlying inflation firmly anchored around 2 percent, signaling that the BOJ could raise rates further to prevent price increases from overshooting the target.
The BOJ cited higher prices of crude oil, semiconductors and other items, as well as the yen's depreciation, among the factors currently pushing up prices and likely to keep doing so for some time. It said it will closely monitor the impact of the situation in the Middle East, global demand related to artificial intelligence, and foreign exchange rate movements on Japan's economic activity and prices.
In the outlook report, the BOJ raised its core consumer price inflation forecast for fiscal 2027 to 2.6 percent from 2.4 percent, while lowering its real GDP growth projection to 0.7 percent from 0.8 percent.
The BOJ first adopted its 2 percent inflation target in January 2013, initially aiming to achieve it in about two years.
In April that year, under then-Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, the central bank launched an aggressive monetary easing program, but the target remained out of reach, with the BOJ repeatedly pushing back the timeline.
Japan's recent inflation has been fueled largely by external factors such as higher energy prices, and analysts said sustained wage growth would be key to creating a virtuous cycle of rising wages and prices.
The BOJ has one more policy meeting this year, scheduled for Dec. 17-18, at which markets increasingly expect another rate hike.
Japan's central bank keeps interest rate unchanged
