Japan’s Kishida to send China a warning on Taiwan at Singapore’s Shangri-La Dialogue, analysts say

The Japanese PM is expected to draw parallels at the Singapore forum between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasingly assertive behaviour in Asia

His planned attendance at a Nato summit later this month further shows Japan is ‘shedding constitutional constraints’ and boosting its military, analysts said

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Fumio Kishida will be the first Japanese prime minister to address the Shangri-La Dialogue since 2014. Photo: Reuters

Published: 8:30am, 10 Jun 2022Updated: 9:02am, 10 Jun 2022

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is expected to use his keynote speech at a security forum in Singapore on Friday to send a warning to China about the dangers of using force to achieve its ends, analysts said.

The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue, organised by British think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies, brings together leaders and defence ministers from the United States, Europe and Asia.

Kishida will be the first Japanese prime minister to address the forum since 2014. Other attendees are set to include US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe.

Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe pictured at the 2019 Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore. Photo: Reuters

Masato Kamikubo, a professor at Ritsumeikan University’s Graduate School of Policy Science in Japan, said Kishida would seek to drive home the same message he had conveyed at a meeting of the Quad security alliance last month – that a unilateral “change of status quo by force” was unacceptable in the Indo-Pacific region.

“The real meaning of Kishida’s message is that a ‘change of status quo by force’ by China in the South China Sea and Taiwan will never be tolerated,” Kamikubo said, adding that the Japanese leader’s aim is to warn China that if it does so, it will suffer heavy military and economic damage.

Japan has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and joined other members of the G7 club of wealthy nations in imposing sanctions aimed at isolating Moscow.

Analysts said Tokyo saw both the Shangri-La Dialogue and a Nato summit Kishida reportedly plans to attend later this month as ways of increasing Western engagement with the Indo-Pacific and deterring China from launching an attack on Taiwan.

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