Japan and the United Nations

State of Japan
United Nations membership
Membership	Full member
Since	18 December 1956
UNSC seat	Non-permanent (G4 member)
Ambassador	Kazuyuki Yamazaki

Japan became the 80th member of the United Nations on 18 December 1956. Since then, Japan has participated in many internationally cooperative initiatives with other members of the United Nations as a basic principle of its foreign policy. When Japan joined the UN in 1956, it did so with great enthusiasm and broad public support, for the international organization was seen to embody the pacified country's hopes for a peaceful world order. Membership was welcomed by many Japanese who saw the UN as a guarantor of a policy of unarmed neutrality for their nation, in addition to the security arrangement they concluded with US in 1951. To others, support for the UN would be useful in masking or diluting Japan's almost total dependence on the United States for its security. The government saw the UN as an ideal arena for its risk minimizing, omnidirectional foreign policy.