Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will attend the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on July 11, where he’s expected to bring attention to security challenges present in East Asia.
His second trip to a NATO summit—in 2022, he was the first Japanese leader to attend one—comes as Japan increases defense spending to deter Chinese and Russian forces in the waters and skies around the country.
At the upcoming meeting, Japan is expected to be included in NATO’s Individually Tailored Partnership Program, opening the way for cooperation on cybersecurity, space, and information sharing on China and Russia.
Mr. Kishida has sought to strengthen cooperation with NATO in the wake of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and China’s assertive military activity in the East Asia region, particularly in the Taiwan Strait.
He met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Tokyo earlier this year and issued a joint statement in which they both raised concerns over Russia’s growing military cooperation with China, including through joint operations and drills in the vicinity of Japan.
The two leaders strongly opposed unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force in the East China Sea and called for a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues between China and Taiwan.
“Our basic positions on Taiwan remain unchanged, and we emphasize the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element in security and prosperity in the international community,” the statement reads.
Mr. Kishida warned that the invasion of Ukraine could be replicated in East Asia if leading powers don’t respond as one, saying peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait must be maintained.
NATO’s Plan for Asia Office
Japan is also working toward opening a NATO liaison office to allow the U.S.-led alliance to consult with regional partners, which will be the first of its kind in Asia, Japanese envoy Koji Tomita said on May 9.However, the military alliance is unlikely to agree to open an office in Tokyo in the face of French President Emmanuel Macron’s opposition to a move that could irritate China and open NATO up to accusations of geographical overreach.
“If we push NATO’s presence in the Indo-Pacific area and expand its reach, we will be making a big mistake,” a French foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Asian security is also relevant to European peace, according to Mr. Schuster.
“Europe has a very extensive trading interest, and any threat to the international seaways, freedom of navigation, any bullying that threatens any of the Asian countries, those all affect Europe,” he said.
The establishment of a NATO liaison office in Tokyo shows that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) so-called wolf warrior diplomacy of the past five years has backfired, according to Mr. Schuster, because European opinion of China has changed.
“In some cases, the [European] countries are becoming diplomatically skeptical about China,” he said, citing the CCP’s activities in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and other countries south of China and its alignment with Russia’s aggression.
