TOKYO: Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, warned in his first policy speech on Friday that “today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia” while describing the country’s low birth rate as a “silent emergency”. “Many fear that today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia. Why didn’t deterrence work in Ukraine?” Ishiba told the parliament. “Combined with the situation in the Middle East, the international community is increasingly divided and confrontational,” said the 67-year-old former defense minister. Japan’s relations with China have soured in recent years as Beijing asserts its military presence in disputed territories in the region and Tokyo strengthens security ties with the United States and its allies. In August, Chinese military aircraft carried out China’s first confirmed incursion into Japanese airspace, followed weeks later by a Japanese warship sailing through the Taiwan Strait for the first time. Ishiba supports the creation of a regional military alliance along the lines of NATO and said on Tuesday that the security environment in Asia was “the worst since the end of World War II”.
