Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s presence as a guest at the NATO anniversary summit in Washington on July 9-11, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the creation of the military-political alliance, as well as his stop in Germany on the way home, are noteworthy events.
On the main reason for F. Kishida’s latest trip abroad
It took place only two months after the Prime Minister’s previous trip outside of Japan, a country that, after the end of the catastrophic World War II, is again being viewed as an increasingly prominent participant in the processes unfolding on the world political scene. Also, the same can be said about the Japanese ally at that time, Germany.
The ‘Declaration’ adopted at the end of the NATO summit in Washington is such that it can be summarised in two simplified phrases: ‘for all the good and against all the bad’ and ‘democracy must include fists’. Russia and China are named as the main sources of ‘everything bad’, actors to which these ‘fists’ will be demonstrated.
It is difficult to find something fundamentally new in this document compared to what has been said from the same sources regarding the aforementioned processes over the past 10–15 years.
It is likewise very difficult to agree that the main result of the last NATO summit was the (notorious and mythical) ‘West’s’ alleged intention to ‘destroy Russia’.
There is nothing new in the stated desire to ensure NATO’s defence by ‘360 degrees’ (paragraph 22) with the long-term goal of shifting the focus to the Indo-Pacific region.
Kishida turned out to be an important guest at NATO’s anniversary summit
No one else but Japan can be assigned the role of Washington’s main regional assistant in the long-standing project of forming the ‘Asian branch’ of NATO. It should be noted that some of the ‘old’ members of this organisation, i.e. its leading European participants, are trying to mark their presence in the Indo-Pacific, but this is rather an empty and unsuccessful attempt to show off.
Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State of the United States, spoke about the very need to create an ‘Asian NATO’ in the early 2000s. A few years later, the idea was repeated by then Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. Since then, however, nothing that even remotely resembles NATO has appeared in the Indo-Pacific. At most, AUKUS and Quad can be viewed as elements of the future ‘Asian NATO’. However, again, there are no traces of the latter on the horizon yet.
Nevertheless, in Washington NATO leadership staged a ‘ritual dance around the totem pole’ on this topic, the totem pole in this case being the Japanese prime minister. There were also other potential candidates for this role, but, of course, of a lower level of importance, for example the President of the Republic of Korea, Prime Minister of New Zealand and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. The hosts of the event now intend to coordinate their actions ‘more closely’ in certain aspects of defence and security with this ‘quartet’ of Indo-Pacific countries.
It should be noted, however, that there are serious problems in bilateral relations among some of them, which is one of the main obstacles to the formation of an ‘Asian NATO’. Another meeting of F. Kishida with the President of the Republic of Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, held during the Washington event, showed the existence of such problems.
A very important circumstance in this case is that the foreign policy vector of each member of the said ‘quartet’ is at the stage of formation, and it will not necessarily be anti-Chinese in nature. The fact that the PRC-Japan-ROK configuration has resumed operation is evidence of this.
The Chinese factor in Japanese foreign policy manoeuvres
The Chinese reaction to almost all aspects of the NATO anniversary summit, as well as F. Kishida’s activeness during it, was as expected, serving as the reason for the definition of Japan as the ‘vanguard’ of the organisation in Indo-Pacific.
Despite this and a myriad of other issues, including the constantly repeated mantra in Tokyo about the ‘cornerstone nature’ of allied relations with Washington, attempts to spread these relations to the Philippines and the expansion of military presence in the South China Sea, developments in the Taiwan issue (which are extremely sensitive for China), as well as much more, Beijing expresses satisfaction with even the semblance of any positive aspects of bilateral relations – even when the matter is seemingly of a secondary level of importance.
The results of the aforementioned China-Japan-ROK summit held in Seoul at the end of May, as well as the meeting between F. Kishida and his Chinese counterpart, Li Qiang, which took place during it, received a rather restrained, but still positive assessment from Beijing. China also positively assesses the visit of the vice speaker of the lower house of the Japanese parliament to China scheduled on July 22, which should serve to establish permanent inter-parliamentary ties.
The leader of the Komeito Party, i.e. the ‘junior partner’ of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), pointed out the necessity of maintaining dialogue with China during a tour of Southeast Asian countries. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (2009-2010), who is in the opposition camp today, expressed the same idea at an international event held in early July in Beijing.
Tokyo’s grateful reaction to the tragic incident that happened in late June in a Shanghai suburb, when a Chinese woman died protecting a Japanese woman and her son from an attack by an apparently mentally ill Chinese man wielding a knife, was also noted.
All in all, the strategy of seating Japan at the table of the ‘grand global game’ is at the stage of development and it seems to be forming ‘ad hoc’.
Kishida’s brief stop in Germany
Japan behaves similarly to Europe; here we may once again note the progress in Tokyo’s relations with London. The visit of the Imperial couple of Japan to Great Britain at the end of June further evidenced this. At the NATO summit, the Japanese Prime Minister met with his new colleague from the United Kingdom. Another probe into the development of relations with France, that is, with another leading European country, took place in early May during F. Kishida’s visit.
Apparently, in the agenda of the current Cabinet of Ministers of Japan (as discussed below), Germany was next in line, where the head made a stop on July 13 on his way home from Washington. However, judging by the content of the negotiations (accessible to external observation) held in Berlin between the guest and his colleague, Olaf Scholz, the nature of F. Kishida’s one-day visit in Germany was by no means ‘transitory’ in nature.
Further escalation of the internal political situation
Meanwhile, an unfriendly atmosphere continues to form at home for a number of reasons that have been discussed more than once at New Eastern Outlook. He has to consider the Japanese electorate’s generalised message along the following lines: ‘Excellency in the foreign policy sphere is good, but your priority should be solving escalating internal problems. And we are not seeing much success in this’.
In this regard, losing the electoral struggle for three vacant parliamentary seats at the end of April was a wake-up call for the current Cabinet of Ministers and the ruling (for now) LDP. Both the government and LDP watched the upcoming regular elections for the extremely important post of governor of Tokyo with considerable concern. It seems that the current governor, Yuriko Koike, who was supported by LDP, also retained this post following the results of the elections held on July 7. But here there are two caveats.
Firstly, ‘a pleasant lady in all respects’ (a former TV presenter), but at the same time ambitious and determined, Y. Koike previously created bad blood between the leadership of LDP and then leader of the ‘party and government’ S. Abe. In public events on the eve of the current elections, she generally avoided mentioning the fact of the abovementioned ‘support’. According to experts, this is a significant factor of her current success.
In addition, a young, previously almost unknown non-partisan, self-nominated candidate came in second place. But in this, the same experts saw signs of the doom of the entire current party and political system of the country emerging in Japanese society.
Finally, let us once again emphasise that we are considering the ongoing process of shaping Japanese foreign policy, Japan being one of the important participants in the current stage of the ‘Grand global game’, and in this process, nothing has yet been determined ‘definitively’.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
