The war has also seen countries like Japan and South Korea draw closer to their Western partners, while presenting a united front against perceived threats closer to home. “Since we are hosting it here in Japan, so we have to talk about Asia Pacific, Indo-Pacific issues too,” he said, adding that the summit location in Hiroshima - where atomic bombs were dropped in 1945 - was partly chosen because “we would like to talk about nonproliferation and also disarmament,” topics that have come to the fore during the war in Ukraine. Zelensky is expected to dial in remotely. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to participate in the G7 summit next week, said Hayashi, alongside the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves through Europe and drove non-aligned Finland and Sweden to abandon their neutrality and seek protection within NATO, with Finland formally joining the bloc last month. In a statement to CNN last week, a NATO spokesperson said: “As to plans to open a liaison office in Japan, we won’t go into the details of ongoing deliberations among NATO allies.” She added that NATO and Japan “have a long-standing cooperation.”ĬNN reached out to NATO for comment on Wednesday after Hayashi’s remarks. The liaison office in Japan will enable discussions with NATO’s security partners, such as South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, on geopolitical challenges, emerging and disruptive technologies, and cyber threats, Nikkei reported last week. NATO has similar liaison offices in other places including Ukraine and Vienna. The Nikkei Asia first reported plans to open the office in Japan last Wednesday, citing unnamed Japanese and NATO officials. The opening of a NATO liaison office in Japan would mark a significant development for the Western alliance amid deepening geopolitical fault lines, and is likely to attract criticism from the Chinese government, which has previously warned against such a move.
He added that Japan is not a treaty member of NATO, which stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – but that the move sends a message the bloc’s Asia Pacific partners are “engaging in a very steady manner” with NATO.
That’s why a cooperation between us in East Asia and NATO (is) becoming … increasingly important.” “Something happening in East Europe is not only confined to the issue in East Europe, and that affects directly the situation here in the Pacific.
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