Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida departed from Tokyo Haneda Airport by special plane to visit five member countries of the Group of Seven (G7) including France, Italy, the UK, Canada, and the US, on January 9, local time. In response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and China's movement, one of the main contents of Kishida's visit is to strengthen security cooperation with other G7 members, especially with the US.
Recently, Japan has introduced three policy documents related to national security, announced that it will double its defense budget, and claimed to "have the counterstrike capability." In this regard, German International Politics and Society stated that Japan is breaking the pacifist tradition of more than 70 years after World War II, and its national security strategy has shifted from pure defense to military build-up and offense. Many critics believe that Japan will return to the dark militarism of its past.
Professor Liu Jiangyong of the Department of International Relations of Tsinghua University said on January 9 that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to the five G7 countries is an important step in his diplomacy in 2023. First, the G7 summit will be held in Kishida's hometown, Hiroshima and he hopes to consolidate and improve his ruling status in Japan through this summit, and at the same time increase Japan's international influence. Second, the visit happened after the Japanese government released a new version of the three security documents, which marks a fundamental change in Japan's postwar strategy toward China. Japan has positioned China as "the biggest strategic challenge so far", which is the most aggressive among G7 members. Japan hopes that its positioning of China can help gain international support. The G7 countries may further reach a consensus on thisat the summit to be held in May.
During Kishida's visit, unlike his bilateral talks with the leaders of France, Italy, and the UK, he attached special attention to the talks with US President Joe Biden. He defined the Japan-US summit as a "precious opportunity." The Associated Press reported that the key focus of Kishida'svisit is to highlight the strength of the Japan-US alliance and how the two countries can work more closely under Japan's new security strategy.
In this regard, Liu said that Kishida's visit is the first strategic coordination between the leaders of Japan and the US after Japan releasing the new security documents. Japan and the US will strengthen coordination in a series of major changes in military affairs and strategy. In the US-Japan alliance in the past, Japan could only coordinate with the US in combat operations. Now, this traditional post-war Japan-US military division of labor has undergone qualitative changes.
Liu believes that in terms of relations with China, Japan is more eager than the US to prevent China's peaceful development, prevent China's complete reunification, and prevent China from exerting influence in the international arena because of its geostrategic needs and a series of entanglements with China, such as territorial issues and historical issues. At the same time, Japan needs to expand the strategic contradiction between China and the US, so as to seek its own interests. This may cause Japan to shift from a post-war country with peaceful development in East Asia to a road of military expansion with offensive capabilities and beggar-thy-neighbor. This is a warning sign for the Asia-Pacific region.
Lyu Chao, dean of the Institute of American and East Asian Studies at Liaoning University, said that one of the important purposes of Kishida's visit to the G7 countries is to target China and contain China's development. Kishida intends to make use of this visit and act as a pawn for the US's Indo-Pacific strategy. In return, Kishida hopes that the US can agree to loosen restrictions on Japan's military expansion. Kishida also wants to win the support of European countries, so that they can back up Japan's confrontation against China in the Asia-Pacific region, and remove obstacles for the US to promote the Indo-Pacific Strategy.
Under the current international situation, how to deal with the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a major issue facing the West, especially European countries. Kishida obviously takes this opportunity to further express Japan's position on the Russia-Ukraine issue, and to support European countries' decision to strengthen sanctions against Russia, in exchange for Europe's full support in the so-called "Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy".
The Russian Sputnik News reported that Japan's recent series of actions have shown that it follows the US and acts as a pawn for the US's global strategy. The report quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko in an interview with Russian media a few days ago, saying that Japan's various moves to strengthen its military power not only pose a serious challenge to Russia but also a threat to all Asia-Pacific countries. Russia will take reciprocal response measuresif Japan does not stop.
Editor's note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
