Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Saturday he told Western powers that East Asia could be the next Ukraine, as he urged a united front on a rising China and bellicose North Korea.
Japan is proud to be the only Asian member of the G7 and Kishida has said that his response on Ukraine effectively internationalised Western-led opposition to Russia’s invasion.
In turn, Kishida said earlier in a speech in Washington, Japan needed to be able to rely on “allies and like-minded countries” on risks from China.
“China needs to make a strategic decision that it will abide by the established international rules and that it cannot and will not change the international order in ways that are contrary to these rules,” he said on Friday at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
Kishida said Japan still saw itself as a “peace-loving” nation and would use the G7 to push for the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons. The world should “not make light of the history” in which no nuclear weapons had been used over the past 77 years, he added.
