'Today's Ukraine could be tomorrow's East Asia': Japan and France agree to bolster cooperation
Tokyo and Paris have agreed to enhance security collaboration in the Indo-Pacific. Euronews discussed the significance of these talks for Tokyo with Maki Kobayashi, spokesperson for the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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00:00 Prime Minister Kishida and Macron discussed this sort of common road map in December.
00:06 Do you feel like China's threat, maritime threat, at the Sino-Pacific Ocean has increased?
00:14 As we have, as we wrote in our national security strategy, which was released in December 2022,
00:25 this current external stance of China and military activities pose unprecedented challenges
00:35 for security of Japan and the international community.
00:40 We are concerned with the unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion
00:47 in East and South China Seas.
00:50 As you might have seen, our trilateral leaders meeting Japan, the U.S., Philippines in April
00:57 last month, we also expressed our serious concerns over the dangerous activities by
01:09 coast guards and military militia for the high seas exercise of freedom of navigation
01:19 by Philippine vessels, as well as disruption of supply line to the St. Thomas Shoal.
01:27 Chinese leader Xi Jinping is coming on Monday to meet with President Macron.
01:35 Do you have any sort of hopes for this meeting, hopes in the way that you would like France
01:41 to react or what you would like President Macron, what message you would like to pass
01:46 as Xi Jinping comes just a couple of days after Prime Minister Kishida?
01:53 I think we are on the same page among G7 and also with France.
02:02 There are many challenges which are posed by China, but also opportunities.
02:07 We have to deliver the messages where we are concerned, and we would like China to be a
02:12 responsible power, but at the same time we need to cooperate where need to be cooperated
02:20 like climate change and so on.
02:23 Where does Prime Minister Kishida stand on the issue of Russia's aggression in Ukraine?
02:30 Our support to Ukraine is unwavering.
02:33 We have been supporting Ukraine up until now $12.1 billion for the reconstruction and also
02:41 to support Ukraine, including our contribution to NATO trust fund for providing anti-dollon
02:49 detection system as well.
02:53 This is really the matter of whether we can uphold rules-based international order or
02:58 not.
02:59 The Security Council member Russia to influence manifestly UN Charter and their actions and
03:07 worse alluding to threat of nuclear weapon is inadmissible.
03:19 We have been saying that, and the Prime Minister has repeatedly saying that today's Ukraine
03:24 may be tomorrow's East Asia.
03:26 We should not give any wrong messages to the international community.
03:32 What about the current situation in the Middle East with, for example, Israel and Gaza?
03:38 Where does Prime Minister Kishida stand on that?
03:40 Does he also call for a ceasefire?
03:42 Yes, Japan calls for immediate ceasefire which is going to bring about, first of all, release
03:51 of hostages and also to make better environment for humanitarian assistance to arrive to those
04:00 who are in need.
04:02 And we hope such ceasefire is going to be durable in the end.
04:07 [WHOOSH]