2023-05-10 16:36:13
The I’LL TAKE will open in Japan its first Asian office next year. It is not a negligible achievement for an organization that three years ago was declared “brain dead” by the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Today it overflows with splendor with new European adhesions, military increases as elephantine as they are generalized and a progressive landing in Asia. These are the consequences of the war in Ukraine, as longed for by Washington as they are feared by Beijing.
The news was announced days ago by the Japanese media ‘Nikkei Asia’ and was confirmed this Wednesday on CNN by the Foreign Minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi. they are only talks, he hastens to clarify, but common interests rule out failure. It has not been revealed if it will be one-person, who will pay the bill or the specific powers. It is hardly known that it will serve for consultations with Japan and other countries in the area on matters of security, geopolitical challenges, new technologies y cyber threats. The idea came up during the meeting in Tokyo in January of the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenbergand the Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, and three months later a draft was already circulating among the 31 member countries. The deadlines suggest vertigo.
“The reason we negotiated the office is because the world has become a more unstable place since the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Hayashi said. Allusions to Moscow abound in his speech and it is true that the russianjapanese relations they have been downgraded after Tokyo’s support for kyiv. Russian bombers and warships have frequented the Sea of Japan in recent months. But it’s hard not to see in Russia to the temporary problem now China as the main objective of the office. With China, the United States discusses global supremacy and Japan collects historical frictions and territorial disputes. There is no more enthusiastic supporter of US military policy in the area than Tokyo. Its exemplary pacifist constitution is already in danger and it has just approved the largest increase in Defense since World War II. Only geography separated Japan from NATO and those boundaries are blurring fast.
new alliances
Last year’s NATO summit in Madrid was attended by Japan, South Korea and Australia for the first time. The office will deepen the footprint of the Atlantic organization in the Pacific and will mean another twist in the military suffocation of China. Washington already has tens of thousands of troops stationed in South Korea and Japan, sponsors new military alliances such as AUKUS (with Australia and the United Kingdom) and QUAD (with Australia, India and Japan) and plants more bases in the Philippines. . The office, even without knowing its functions, is not short on symbolism.
Related news
The news was greeted with predictable nervousness in Beijing. “Asia is a promising place for peaceful development and cooperation, it should not become a platform for those seeking geopolitical feuds,” the Foreign Ministry said last week. “NATO’s eastward expansion and its interference in Asia Pacific affairs will affect regional peace and security,” he added. Beijing aligns itself with the Russian discourse that blames NATO for the mess in Ukraine and views its arrival in its backyard with apprehension.
Qin GangChinese Foreign Minister, said on Wednesday that the greatest danger to Europe is “a certain country” that exports its mentality of Cold War in the world and imposes unilateral sanctions. Qin released the riddle in Berlin, the first leg of a tour that will also take him to Paris and Oslo, and in which he intends to separate Europe from the United States by a few centimeters. That country, Qin has continued, has abused the monopoly of its currency in global trade and transferred its inflationary and fiscal crises to the world.
#Japan #negotiates #open #NATO #office #Asia