Kyodo News
May 7, 2022

Japan PM Kishida eyes attending int’l security forum in June

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is set to attend a major international security forum next month in Singapore, Japanese government sources said Saturday.

If realized, the attendance of a Japanese prime minister at the annual meeting from June 10 to 12 will be the first since 2014, when his predecessor Shinzo Abe took part in the Asian security summit, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue.

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At the international conference, Kishida is likely to express opposition to the use of force to change the status quo amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasing maritime assertiveness in the East and South China seas.

He is also expected to call on participants, including defense chiefs from the Asia Pacific region, to cooperate in realizing a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The annual event will be attended by defense ministers and military-related personnel mainly from the Asia Pacific region to discuss regional situations and defense cooperation.

The conference is held every year in Singapore, sponsored by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank….

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Interfax-Ukraine
May 7, 2022

Japanese defense minister: Confronting Russia will deter China

A strong international response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is critical to deterring China from embarking on territorial conquests in Taiwan or the South China Sea, said Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi.

“China has been carefully observing the current situation of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and they are paying particularly close attention to what kind of reactions the international community has been taking,” Kishi told The Post during an interview in Washington on Thursday.

The top Japanese defense official said the global response would weigh heavily on Beijing and its “actions in the Asian region going forward.”

“If the international community somehow allows or condones Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, it might send a wrong message that such actions can be tolerated in other parts of the world, including the Indo-Pacific,” Kishi said.

Tokyo, which has historically shied away from conflicts outside of Asia, has joined the United States and the European Union in imposing multiple rounds of sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. The Japanese Defense Ministry has provided Ukraine with drones, bulletproof vests and humanitarian aid, and accepted evacuees from Ukraine using Japanese aircraft. Kishi said Japan “will continue as much support as we can to Ukraine.”