Ambassadors from NATO member states attend a meeting with former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (front row, center) at the Diet on the afternoon of April 16. (©Sankei/Ataru Haruna)
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Envoys from roughly 30 NATO member states visited Japan on Thursday, holding separate talks in Tokyo with former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi.
With the international order coming under pressure from Russia's war in Ukraine, Beijing's expanding maritime assertiveness in the East and South China seas, and instability in the Middle East, the meetings were widely seen as NATO's broader push to deepen coordination with like-minded countries.
According to those familiar with the matter, Kishida reportedly said at the meeting that "strategic cooperation with NATO and its member states, as trusted partners, is becoming ever more important."
He also reportedly asked that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi be invited to the NATO summit in Turkey in July.
Motegi is said to have echoed the point, saying that "at a time of mounting global turbulence, the security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific is indivisible."
A Fraying Alliance
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Tokyo has sought closer ties with NATO, wary that China could be emboldened to make a move on Taiwan.
Kishida, then prime minister, became the first Japanese leader to attend a NATO summit when he joined the meeting in Spain in June that year. He went on to participate for three consecutive years.
Yet NATO is now facing what may be its gravest crisis since its founding in 1949. In the wake of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, European member states have avoided direct involvement and declined to dispatch naval ships to help reopen the effectively blockaded Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump has responded with fury at the lack of support, even hinting at a possible US withdrawal from the alliance.
Tokyo's Strategic Balancing
For Japan, whose only formal ally is the US, the situation is more delicate. Even so, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has sought to strengthen ties not only with Washington but with NATO member states like Britain, France, Germany, and Italy.
The move is aimed at deterring an increasingly assertive China with hegemonic ambitions by tightly cooperating with countries that share core values.
After the meeting, Kishida wrote on X that "stronger coordination with like-minded countries is the key to navigating today's increasingly chaotic international environment."
Japan's run of attendance at NATO summits was broken after former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba chose not to attend last June's gathering in the Netherlands. Within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, however, senior officials are now urging that Japan should attend this year.
Whether Prime Minister Takaichi attends the summit in Turkey may serve as a bellwether for the administration's willingness to deepen ties with NATO in the months ahead.
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Author: Shingo Nagahara, The Sankei Shimbun
(Read the article in Japanese)
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