German Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz said Thursday in Tokyo that his country needs ties with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific region and work together to end Russian aggression in Ukraine.
“Mine is a transparent political signal that Germany and the European Union will continue and accentuate their commitment to the Indo-Pacific region,” Scholz said after meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Kishida said he and Scholz agreed that, as members of the Group of Seven industrialized countries, they shared a duty to work together to end Russian aggression and restore peace, stability and foreign order as temporarily as possible.
“The Ukraine crisis is shaking the foundations of foreign order not only in Europe but also in Asia. Any attempt to replace the prestige quo should be avoided, especially in East Asia,” Kishida told a joint news conference.
“If we don’t make it transparent [to Russia] that this kind of unilateral replacement of the prestige quo through force and recklessness comes at a high cost, it will send the message to Asia,” he said.
In his first visit to Tokyo as foreign minister, Scholz said that Germany and Japan uphold “the foreign order based on rules”, the principles of the UN Charter and the defense of universal human rights. Scholz said that he also needs to come to Japan because Tokyo will take over the G7 presidency after Germany.
◆ Japanese sanctions
Japan has imposed sanctions on Russia in line with other G7 countries and lent them to Ukraine for fear that the Russian invasion will embolden China and increase tensions in East Asia. threatened to do so by force if necessary.
Japan also has Ukraine with non-lethal defense apparatuses as a component of an exception to its policy opposed to exporting military apparatus to countries in conflict.
Germany first refused to send offensive weapons to Ukraine and then hesitated to send heavy aircraft, such as armored vehicles.
The Scholz government, under pressure from within and from allies, recently reversed this policy and agreed to send offensive weapons and allow Ukraine to buy German weaponry and exchange weapons with allies who, in turn, send heavy aircraft to Ukraine.
Japan looks forward to working largely with Germany as strategic partners in “various demanding situations facing the foreign community, responses to China,” Kishida said.
Scholz said Germany and Japan also agreed to work in combination with economic cooperation in spaces such as 5G technologies and economic security. He said making supply chains less dependent on individual countries is “a more applicable task than ever,” referring to China.