2023年7月11日日経アジア
NATO removes Tokyo office mention from joint communique - Nikkei Asia
VILNIUS, Lithuania -- The establishment of a NATO office in Tokyo has been left uncertain after language regarding the proposal was removed from a final joint communique of the alliance summit.
A sentence noting that NATO would continue discussions with the Japanese government toward opening a liaison office in Tokyo had survived several rounds of discussions, but was deleted in the last round of talks, a source told Nikkei Asia.
The annual meeting kicked off with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand attending in person for the second year in a row. Though there is consensus on the need to deepen engagement with Indo-Pacific partners given concerns such as cybersecurity that transcend geography, allies remain divided over the expansion of NATO's footprint into the region.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg had raised the possibility of establishing such an office when he visited Japan at the beginning of the year. Japan too has upgraded its representation to NATO by creating a new ambassador post, which had previously been assumed by its envoy to Belgium.
France had openly opposed the plan on the basis that it would send the wrong message to China and to Southeast Asian countries that are nervous about choosing sides in the broader Washington-Beijing rivalry.
Southeast Asia would "broadly see NATO's Indo-Pacific institutionalization in Tokyo as a challenge to ASEAN centrality," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. Some say the bloc of 10 nations has been losing relevance as new U.S.-led "minilateral" groupings such as the Quad and AUKUS take center stage in the Indo-Pacific region.
Stoltenberg, whose term as NATO chief was recently extended, has spearheaded the move to reach out to the region. He greeted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the summit on Tuesday with these words: "We value the partnership with you because security is not regional, security is global. What happens in the Indo-Pacific matters for Europe, and what happens in Europe matters for the Indo-Pacific."
Yoon echoed the sentiment, saying that this was his second consecutive year at a NATO summit, following Madrid's last year.
"Last year, I really focused on the sense of unity and solidarity with countries sharing common values. In this year's summit, I am going to focus on institutionalizing the framework of our cooperation with NATO," Yoon said.
Yoon said he wanted to press on with discussions on sharing military information and on cybersecurity.
At the NATO Public Forum held on the sidelines of the summit, Czech President Petr Pavel emphasized the need to team up with like-minded Indo-Pacific partners in the face of the battle unfolding between democracies and autocracies today.
Unlike the ideological confrontation during the Cold War, the world is now witnessing a global competition between systems, with democracies on one side and autocracies like China, North Korea, Iran or Russia on the other, the former army general said.
"All these countries follow a different set of values. Their argument is that the West, the democracies, have developed the existing world order to fit their interest and now the time has come to change the world order to fit more to this multipolar vision of the world," he said.
He pointed out that Russia considers itself a true protector of Christian values and that China believes its own system of governance to be superior and more efficient and resilient. The only way the world can prevent the dominance of Russia or China is to "protect and promote our values," he said.
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「ビリニュス共同】岸田文雄首相は12日(日本時間同)、欧米の軍事同盟である北大西洋条約機構(NATO)のストルテンベルグ事務総長とリトアニアで会談した。サイバー防衛対処、宇宙安全保障など16分野での協力を盛り込んだ新文書「国別適合パートナーシップ計画」(ITPP)を発表。NATO部隊演習への自衛隊の参加拡充や緊急援助の共同行動を明記した。覇権主義的行動を強める中国をにらみ、インド太平洋地域での連携拡大を打ち出した。
首相はリトアニアで開催されたNATO首脳会議に出席し、NATOの基金に拠出した3千万ドルを活用してウクライナに対無人航空機検知システムなど殺傷性のない装備品の供与を進めると表明。「基本的価値と戦略的利益を共有するパートナーは、その絆をさらに深めるべきだ」と述べた。首脳会議は2日目の討議を行い閉幕。ロシアの侵攻を受けるウクライナへの支援継続を確認した。」