Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s presence as a guest at the NATO anniversary summit in Washington on July 9-11, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the creation of the military-political alliance, as well as his stop in Germany on the way home, are noteworthy events.

On the main reason for F. Kishida’s latest trip abroad

It took place only two months after the Prime Minister’s previous trip outside of Japan, a country that, after the end of the catastrophic World War II, is again being viewed as an increasingly prominent participant in the processes unfolding on the world political scene. Also, the same can be said about the Japanese ally at that time, Germany.

The ‘Declaration’ adopted at the end of the NATO summit in Washington is such that it can be summarised in two simplified phrases: ‘for all the good and against all the bad’ and ‘democracy must include fists’. Russia and China are named as the main sources of ‘everything bad’, actors to which these ‘fists’ will be demonstrated.

It is difficult to find something fundamentally new in this document compared to what has been said from the same sources regarding the aforementioned processes over the past 10–15 years.

It is likewise very difficult to agree that the main result of the last NATO summit was the (notorious and mythical) ‘West’s’ alleged intention to ‘destroy Russia’.

There is nothing new in the stated desire to ensure NATO’s defence by ‘360 degrees’ (paragraph 22) with the long-term goal of shifting the focus to the Indo-Pacific region.

Kishida turned out to be an important guest at NATO’s anniversary summit

No one else but Japan can be assigned the role of Washington’s main regional assistant in the long-standing project of forming the ‘Asian branch’ of NATO. It should be noted that some of the ‘old’ members of this organisation, i.e. its leading European participants, are trying to mark their presence in the Indo-Pacific, but this is rather an empty and unsuccessful attempt to show off.

Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State of the United States, spoke about the very need to create an ‘Asian NATO’ in the early 2000s. A few years later, the idea was repeated by then Prime........

© New Eastern Outlook