Japan PM Ishiba warns ‘today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia’

In his first policy speech to parliament, the new leader also called the country’s birth rate situation a ‘quiet emergency’

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Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks at Japan’s parliament in Tokyo on Friday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:15pm, 4 Oct 2024

Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba warned in his first policy speech on Friday that “today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia” while also dubbing the country’s low birth rate a “quiet emergency”.

“Many fear that today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia. Why did deterrence not work in Ukraine?” Ishiba told parliament.

“Combined with the situation in the Middle East, the international community is becoming increasingly divided and confrontational,” the 67-year-old former defence minister said.

Japan’s relations with China have deteriorated in recent years as Beijing asserts its military presence around disputed territories in the region and Tokyo boosts security ties with the United States and its allies.

In August, a Chinese military aircraft staged the first confirmed incursion by China into Japanese airspace, followed weeks later by a Japanese warship sailing through the Taiwan Strait for the first time.

Ishiba backs the creation of a regional military alliance along the lines of Nato, saying on Tuesday that the security environment in Asia was “the most severe since the end of World War II”.