Exactly Succeeding Kishida Diplomacy

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba participated in the East Asia Summit held in Vientiane, Laos on October 11th. Following some bilateral meetings with the leaders in Asia and the leaders meeting of ASEAN, EAS became his first opportunity to make a presentation of his comprehensive diplomatic policies to the world with attendance of diplomatic leaders from the United States, Russia and China. Ishiba exactly kept the line which had been drawn by his predecessor, Fumio Kishida.

Ishiba expressed fundamental concern on current security situation in the world, saying that “the principles of the U.N. Charter, such as respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, peaceful settlement of disputes based on international law, and prohibition of the use of force, are becoming increasingly important in today’s turbulent international situation.” As Kishida had always been doing, Ishiba emphasized Japan’s standpoint that it would not tolerate any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion anywhere in the world.

 

Implying protest against China’s unilateral advance to East and South China Sea, Ishiba opposed to activities that infringed on Japan’s sovereignty, and to provocative military activities in East China Sea and militarization and coercive activities in South China Sea. He hoped compliance with Arbitral Tribunal’s award, which ruled the case between Philippines and China in favor of Philippines in 2016.

 

Ishiba also stressed that peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait were important for the region and international community. On North Korea, he expressed serious concern on the advancement of North Korea’s nuclear and missile activities, which violated U.N. Security Council’s resolutions. He called for continuing understanding from EAS countries toward immediate resolution of abductions issue.

 

While Japan has been disputing against Russian occupation in the Northern Territories offshore northeast of Hokkaido Island, Ishiba accused Russian aggression against Ukraine, calling it “a blatant breach of international law.” He also called for a united response in urging all parties concerned to exercise the utmost restraint over the situation in Middle East. Russian minister for foreign affairs, Sergey Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, were on the table of the meeting.

 

After finishing his diplomatic schedule in Vientiane, Ishiba showed certain satisfaction on the result of his diplomatic debut. “The bilateral relationship is not necessarily good, I could find a clue to resolve the issues,” said Ishiba about bilateral relations with China, referring to his effort to have summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

 

He did not bring up his personal agenda of establishing Asian version of NATO in any meetings. While Ishiba was in his trip abroad, Minister for Foreign Affairs Takeshi Iwaya explained Ishiba’s initiative as dependent on the discussion in the future, which indicated that Japan has no concrete idea for implementing the initiative so far.

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