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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (right) listens as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during an online meeting with Group of 7 leaders at the prime minister’s official residence in Tokyo on February 24. Kishida faces a difficult task in pursuing his goal of increasing Japan’s diplomatic and military clout without damaging important relations with China and Russia. Photo: AFP
Opinion
Yoshihiro Sakai
Yoshihiro Sakai

Ukraine war: Kishida’s hopes of making Japan a global diplomatic and military player risk crucial ties

  • Foreign policy is one of the top priorities of the Kishida administration, as is increasing Japan’s military strength and ensuring regional stability
  • Efforts to make Japan a bigger player in Ukraine could damage ties with China and Russia, though, which would put Japan’s economy at greater risk

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi was absent from the recent Group of 20 meeting in New Delhi because of the need to attend the budget session at the National Diet in Tokyo. Article 63 of the Japanese constitution stipulates that all cabinet members must be present at such Diet sessions to make themselves available for questioning, with the current session of parliament beginning on January 23.

Nevertheless, Hayashi did attend the Quad meeting on March 3, which India also hosted. This suggests his absence from the G20 meeting was not based solely on legal constraints and reflected the priorities of the Kishida administration.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida became the only Group of 7 leader who has not yet visited Ukraine when US President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made surprise appearances in Kyiv last month. Kishida’s political opponents and scholars hostile to him took this opportunity to intensify their attacks on him, arguing Japan must fulfil its obligations as a global leader and express the nation’s solidarity with the people of Ukraine by visiting Kyiv.

Foreign policy is a top priority for the Kishida administration. Yet, unlike the United States or Italy, Japan’s geographic proximity to Russia inevitably forces Kishida to be more cautious in making a prudent decision concerning the Ukraine conflict.

Japan must also consider the motivations of its its biggest trade partner, China, which has publicly maintained a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine.

Japan has imported petroleum and natural gas from Middle Eastern nations via sea routes and from Sakhalin – an island over which Japan and Russia have historically fought and is now controlled by Russia.

A liquefied natural gas plant operated by Sakhalin Energy at Prigorodnoye on the Pacific island of Sakhalin, Russia, on July 15, 2021. Photo: Reuters
US and British companies have withdrawn from all Russian energy projects in Sakhalin since the war in Ukraine began, but Japanese companies are still involved. Japan does not want to abandon these enterprises, which it hopes could help negotiate the return of the Kuril Islands, also known as the Northern Territories in Japan, from Russia to Japan.

Kishida cannot afford to risk ruining his nation’s fossil fuel policies and negotiations with Russia over the islands as both have been top priorities for Japanese prime ministers since the country’s defeat in World War II. The Russian Navy’s destroyers and cruisers continue to pass through Japan’s Tsugaru Strait even after the onset of the war in Ukraine, though they have done so peacefully so far.

Most importantly, Kishida is worried that getting involved in Ukraine could upset China. Having served as the chairman of the Hiroshima chapter of the Japan-China Friendship Association, Kishida is one of Japan’s most knowledgeable China experts.

The two nations’ economies have become intricately intertwined in the past few decades. For instance, Japan needs rare metals from China while China needs semiconductor production equipment from Japan.

Not long after the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Biden’s unannounced trip to Kyiv, China called for the resumption of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. President Xi Jinping has regularly made public calls for negotiations since last September, when he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made similar suggestions to Putin at that meeting.

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Russia invaded Ukraine 1 year ago. What has happened so far?

Russia invaded Ukraine 1 year ago. What has happened so far?
China’s 12-point peace proposal has drawn a cool response from Western leaders. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed appreciation for China’s efforts as an indication that China would not sell weapons to Russia and requested a meeting with Xi.

It was probably frustrating for Kishida that China, a major economic competitor, has moved to initiate a peace accord between Ukraine and Russia as he had hoped Japan would play that role. The spotlight has moved from Tokyo to Beijing.

While Japan has enjoyed military protection as a treaty partner of the US since 1952, the government considers itself a significant presence in maintaining world peace. Kishida likely thought his visit to Kyiv would be a highlight in the conflict, marking the triumph of Ukraine and Nato.
Kishida is also dealing with regional security concerns. He has said multiple times that East Asia could be tomorrow where Ukraine is today, and he has announced plans to raise Japan’s defence budget to about 43 trillion yen (US$316.3 billion) in the next five years.

Japan approves major defence overhaul on China threats

In January, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) released a study titled “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan”. Its authors ran a war game simulating a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan 24 times, finding in most cases that US, Japanese and Taiwanese forces could repel a Chinese invasion but at heavy cost. That cost included Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Forces losing 26 warships in the base scenario compared to 17 US Navy ships.
Even that sobering scenario is more upbeat than a similar simulation of a Chinese attack on Taiwan by the RAND Corporation in 2009. That report suggested that the US would struggle to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion as China’s air superiority could end that phase of the war before the defenders fired a shot.

The CSIS report has been particularly shocking to Japan because it offers a rare glimpse into the anticipated damage to the Japanese military with specific numbers.

Kishida could visit Kyiv sometime soon. Doing so risks simultaneously destroying Japan’s relationship with Russia and China while significantly increasing the nation’s economic and security risks.

Yoshihiro Sakai is adviser to the Office of the President at the University of Tokyo. He is a former market operation officer at the Bank of Japan and a senior economist

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