It should act in its own interests, as Japan is doing
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has led a substantial change to Japan’s foreign policy. For decades Japanese foreign policy was conservative, unobtrusive and strictly scripted — faithfully serving the commercial interests of the East Asian economic powerhouse.Last Monday Kishida was in New Delhi, India, on a state visit, where he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There he expressed his support for Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression and paid tribute to the civilians killed in Bucha. In the context of Japanese culture, and given the strict legal and customary requirements a Japanese prime minister must adhere to, this unprecedented secret trip required guts and decisiveness given that it dispensed with protocol and did not even inform Japan beforehand.
The visit to Ukraine was not the only decisive move Kishida made in March. A week before he held a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Tokyo, the first visit by a South Korean president in 12 years. Relations between South Korea and its former coloniser had been at a low ebb since the end of World War 2.
The bloc is setting an example of how to walk the diplomatic tightrope to preserve trust with both China and the US. Pretoria needs to get off its high horse and act according to SA’s best interests. As thing stand neither the East nor the West is particularly impressed.Would you like to comment on this article?
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