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Japan won’t join NATO, but aware of liaison office plan: PM
In response, the Asia-Pacific region did not welcome NATO’s plan to open a liaison office in Japan, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press briefing on Wednesday, after Japan acknowledged NATO’s plan.
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apanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday that his country had no plans to become a NATO member, but acknowledged the security alliance’s plan to open a liaison office in Japan.
Kishida’s comments come after the Japanese ambassador to the United States said earlier this month that the United States-led military pact was planning a Tokyo office, its first in Asia, to facilitate consultations in the region.
“I am not aware of any decision made” at NATO regarding the establishment of the office, Kishida told a Wednesday parliamentary session, adding that the country was not planning to join NATO as a member or semi-member state, Reuters reported.
In response, the Asia-Pacific region did not welcome NATO’s plan to open a liaison office in Japan, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a press briefing on Wednesday, after Japan acknowledged NATO’s plan.
“We want to say that the Asia-Pacific does not welcome group confrontation, does not welcome military confrontation,” Mao said.
She also said Japan should be “extra cautious on the issue of military security”, given its “history of aggression”.
Japan hosted the Group of Seven summit over the weekend in Hiroshima, where the leaders of rich democracies agreed to “de-risk, not decouple” economic engagement with China and reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
Kishida was arranging to attend a NATO summit scheduled to be held in Lithuania in July, Kyodo news agency reported later on Wednesday, citing Japanese government officials.
In April, Finland became the alliance’s 31st member in a historic realignment of Europe’s defenses spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
NATO leaders will now turn up the pressure on awkward allies Hungary and Turkey to lift their block against Sweden joining the pact.
Helsinki’s strategic shift, which ended decades of military nonalignment, has doubled the length of the US-led alliance’s land border with Russia, drawing an angry warning of “countermeasures” from the Kremlin.
Finland’s foreign minister formally sealed Helsinki’s membership on April 4 by depositing the accession papers, after which the Finnish flag was raised between those of France and Estonia to the singing of a choir outside NATO’s gleaming headquarters in Brussels, AFP reported.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Russian President Vladimir Putin had “wanted to slam NATO’s door shut. Today we show the world that he failed, that aggression and intimidation do not work”, as quoted by AFP.
Joining NATO places Finland under Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty, the alliance’s founding document, on the principle of collective defense that an armed attack against one member “shall be considered an attack against them all”.
