- Japan Resurgent
- Turkey’s Presidential Election: Second Round
- Ukraine Unbound
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
At G – 7, Japan Strengthening Alliances
Amid rising security concerns in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan is diplomatically cultivating allies near and far during its G-7 presidency.
As leaders from the Group of Seven (G-7) major countries (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy and Japan + plus EU) meet in Hiroshima, Japan, the host nation used the three-day summit to highlight pressing security challenges in the Asia-Pacific region while asserting itself as a key player on the international stage.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is skillfully ‘leveraging’ Japan’s G-7 presidency to draw the world’s attention to the challenging security situation in the wider region.
Security issues in the Asia-Pacific region include China’s ongoing efforts to expand and modernize its nuclear forces and technologies, its potential invasion of self-governing Taiwan, its vast maritime claims in the South China Sea, and North Korea’s continuation of its military nuclear weapons programme.
Beyond the Asia-Pacific
In his attempt to achieve his far-reaching goal, Kishida has expanded Japan’s diplomatic efforts far beyond its traditional allies in the Asia-Pacific.
Kishida was quick to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year and impose sanctions on Russian entities while offering aid and military assistance worth millions of dollars.
In March this year, Kishida made an unannounced visit to Kyiv.
According to the US think tank, Center for Strategic and International Studies, the visit wasn’t just about symbolic support. It also showed “Japan’s own determination to support Ukraine and oppose Russia’s attempt to change the status quo by force – a universal principle that Tokyo sees as vital to uphold in the face of Chinese coercion in Asia.”
Although it has become customary to invite leaders from non-G7 nations in recent years, Japan is making a more efficient use of the G-7 to expand traditional alliances amid its perceived growing concern about the potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, according to Japan Security expert Robert Ward.
Japan needs “a network as densely as it can be and in as many areas related to security as it can be,” said Ward, Japan chair and senior fellow with the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), “because Japan’s needs go beyond the traditional US-Japan security relationship.”
To further strengthen Japan’s security cooperation with key regional allies, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are also present in Hiroshima.
Japan’s diplomatic efforts in Europe, closer to home and the wider region of the Indo-Pacific have been widely successful.
Thus, Japan signed a landmark agreement with the United Kingdom on the eve of the summit which hailed “Japan’s pivotal role in the Indo-Pacific and their centrality to the UK’s security and prosperity.”
Other signs of Japan’s diplomatic success include a reciprocal access agreement with Australia, its advancement of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (commonly known as the ‘Quad’) between the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, and increasing engagement with African countries and the Global South.
Professor Kyoko Hatakeyama of the University of Niigata Prefecture thinks Japan can still maximize its diplomatic influence during this year’s G-7 presidency.
“If the G7 summit is successful, it will boost Japan’s diplomatic status…and if Japan takes a more active role in maintaining regional order, the Indo-Pacific region can also benefit from these efforts” (DW).
The G-7 leaders pledged to foster constructive ties with Beijing while “de-risking” their economies from China’s “malign practices”.
The G-7 adopted Japan’s vision of a nuclear-free world, though without stepping on the toes of the G-7s three nuclear-armed states (US,UK, France).
With Japan’s initiative, the G-7 is now seeking to be more of a guardian of the international system.
Russia was roundly condemned as a gross violator of this system.
Japan’s G-7 Test
Very much more than the previous and present incumbents of the G-20 [Indonesia, India], Japan has utilized its presidency of the G-7 with telling effect.
First, PM Kishida has pushed Japan’s active foreign policy onto the global stage.
Second, he has succeeded in winning over South Korea as an active partner in regional cooperation.
Third, he has demonstrated effectively that his vision of world politics is on a different (superior) level than that of US President Joe Biden.
Biden categorizes the global struggle as between democracies versus autocracies. There are few takers – even in the U.S. – for this viewpoint, particularly since the US itself and India [ a fellow ‘Quad’-member ] are flawed democracies.
Japanese PM Fumio Kishida sees the dividing line – realistically — between nations that want to protect the existing international order [with all its defects, but highly functional] and those – the likes of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran – who want to build a new, but untested new order in their own image.
Kishida elevated Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as the hallmark of the international order – based on International Law and the Charter of the United Nations.
His invitation to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to attend the G-7 summit was a brilliant, diplomatic coup de main.
And unlike the core countries of the West, Japan under Kishida is attempting to win over the countries of the Global South.
Turkey’s Presidential Election: A Foregone Conclusion
Last Sunday, incumbent Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defied the expectations of pollsters and critics – both domestic and foreign – winning the most votes in a widely anticipated presidential election.
Since none of the candidates received 50 % percent of the votes, Turkey was sent to a runoff vote this very Sunday.
Most experts were flabbergasted, many were shocked.
Many were thinking: How did Erdogan do it?
Now the third-placed contender in the Turkish presidential election, Sinan Ogan, 55, has formally endorsed President Erdogan for the second round runoff vote to be held on May 28.
The nationalist presidential candidate Ogan has emerged as a potential kingmaker after neither Erdogan nor his main challenger, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu secured the necessary majority needed for a first round vote on May 14.
Ogan had won 5.17 % percent.
The prolific and scintillating Washington Post columnist and host of the popular CNN-Sunday evening ‘Global Public Square’ show (NST), Fareed Zakaria writes that although Turks cast their votes freely, Erdogan nonetheless managed to stack the electoral odds in his favour.
“The state lavishes funds on his supporters, and the country’s media is slavishly pro-government,” Zakaria writes.
“Most of Turkey’s major media properties have been bought by business executives who are supporters” of Erdogan, and Turkey imprisons the most journalists of any democracy in the world.
Importantly, a prosecution sidelined Erdogan’s most formidable potential rival, barring him from seeking the presidency, Zakaria notes.
Next Innovation of Illiberal Democracy
“This is the next innovation of illiberal democracy, Zakaria writes. “Elected presidents and prime ministers use their majorities to pass laws that give them sustained structural advantages over their opponents…We need a new vocabulary to describe this phenomenon. Are such elections free? Technically yes – but they are also profoundly unfair.”
It’s not the Economy, stupid!
Erdogan’s strong showing, bolstered by his loyal voter base and previous political machinations, demonstrated why in Turkey the economy did not play a significant role.
Erdogan’s monetary policy is a complete disaster, but Turks keep voting for him.
His forceful first-round result and his surely second-round success will mean five more years – at least – of headaches for Washington and NATO.
Putin’s Ukraine War
Russian ‘Victory’ in Bakhmut, Opportunity for Ukraine
Russia may have claimed victory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, but what comes next is far from clear.
Russia has reduced the city to ruins and must now hold it.
If it continues to send reinforcements to defend the city, it would definitely weaken the Russian forces’ ability to hold off a broader counteroffensive that Ukraine is about to launch (NYT, May 23).
Consequently, it may well have been a Pyrrhic victory!
G-7 Countries’ New Russia Sanctions
The 49th G-7 summit kicked off last Friday in Hiroshima, Japan, and Russia’s war in Ukraine was at the top of the agenda. The economic-cum-political bloc unveiled new measures to further restrict Russian access to their economies, including stricter export controls on Russian oil and gas, transportation efforts and aircraft manufacturing.
“We will starve Russia of G-7 technology, industrial equipment and services that support its war machine,” the bloc said in a statement (FP/Foreign Policy World Brief, May 19).
Individual member countries announced new sanctions of their own as well.
Finally US F-16 Fighter Jets for Ukraine
At the summit, US President Joe Biden told G-7 leaders that the United States would also back a joint initiative with European allies and partners to train Ukrainian pilots on modern military fighter aircraft, including US-made F-16s.
The Biden administration had long been reluctant to provide Ukraine with advanced fighter jets, despite Kyiv’s urgent pleas.
The Immanent Ukrainian Offensive
Ukraine is expected to unleash its counteroffensive soon with tanks, drones and fresh troops.
Kyiv very much needs some kind of success. The armed forces are not only fighting the Russians, they also need to prove to the West that they are still worthy of support (Der Spiegel, May 12).
The leadership in Kyiv has been preparing a large-scale counter-offensive for months.
New combat units have been formed and heavy weaponry has been brought into the country from NATO member states, including battle tanks, self-propelled guns and armoured vehicles.
The Ukrainian army has trained tens of thousands of new troops, some at bases inside Ukraine and others at sites in the UK, Poland and elsewhere under the watchful guidance of US and German military personnel.
Ukraine plans to send at least 12 new brigades into battle, the equivalent of up to 50,000 troops.
Their military aim is that overrunning well-protected Russian positions and reconquering as much occupied territory in the east and south of the country as possible.
However, the Ukrainians are not only attacking the Russian army. On the political front, they are also fighting to shore up public opinion in the West.
If the counteroffensive doesn’t deliver concrete results, support in Ukraine’s partner countries could very well begin to erode.
Furthermore, domestic political shifts in NATO member states – especially a possible Republican victory in the US presidential election in 2024 – could even endanger future support and weapons deliveries.
Where and when exactly the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) will attack is only known to a handful of top military and government leadership positions.
However, it is widely expected that the counteroffensive will be launched very soon.
In Ukraine’s arsenal, the fourth generation fighter jets were still missing. Now that the US has agreed to train Ukraine’s pilots in the F-16s, the way is now clear for European countries to first supply their own jets and later on American ones.
Ukraine has also made deployments that could easily be feints to confuse the Russians and distract them from an advance somewhere else in the country.
Russia continues to hold almost one-sixth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, including almost the entire Luhansk region in the far east of the country along with significant chunks of the Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
Consequently, there are any number of places a counterattack might target.
A possible Ukrainian advance to the nerve centre of Melitopol would not only drive a wedge between the Russian troops in the south and those in the east, it could also endanger Russian supply lines to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Ukraine’s will to persevere is iron-clad.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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