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6 August 2024

Moscow Mulls Reaction to Japan’s Expanding Military Ties With United States

Paul Goble

At a meeting in Tokyo on July 28, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and their Japanese counterparts, Yoko Kamikawa and Minoru Kihara, respectively, announced that the two countries had agreed to establish a joint force headquarters in Japan to improve defense coordination. They also discussed the US commitment to “extended deterrence,” a diplomatic term for employing nuclear weapons to prevent any attack on the two countries. In a joint statement, the four officials expressed concerns over China’s growing assertiveness in the region, declaring that it represented “the greatest strategic challenge” facing the region and the world. In addition, they condemned Russia’s “growing and provocative strategic military cooperation” with China (The Japan Times, July 28; Fondsk.ru, July 30). Despite the obvious focus on Beijing, Moscow has reacted angrily to the meeting and its outcomes as if Russia, rather than China, were the primary target.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was the first Moscow official to react to the Tokyo declaration. He bemoaned the fact that “unfortunately, the current leadership of Japan has completely joined those in the collective West who are unfriendly to Russia and that this cannot fail to inflict harm on our bilateral relations” (Regnum, July 29). Peskov specified that in the first instance, the recent developments would lead to a downgrading in the reception of a Japanese delegation in Moscow this week. The Russian official, however, attributed this downgrading more to a decision by Tokyo to urge Japanese citizens not to visit Russia than to the joint declaration (Izvestiya, July 29).

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