or globally to try to tackle this issue right now. But even though we’re getting reports of this, there isn’t a lot of political will from the U.S. They’re also doing some testing on a reconnaissance satellite, so they’re improving their satellite technology to potentially develop a new weapons system… So the danger of this is that while the rest of the world is focused, and rightly so, on Ukraine, North Korea could be moving along with its nuclear program, it could be perfecting its missile capabilities. So it may not be a necessary time because of Ukraine, but it certainly is favorable for the North Koreans for them to be able to test ballistic missiles. and the rest of the world being distracted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I tend to think that the North Koreans move to their own drumbeat. Now, in terms of whether North Korea is doing this under the cover of the U.S. It’s their ninth test this year, and just this morning I was reading reports that… there is satellite images of activity taking place at a nuclear facility where it looks like they’re building some construction sites. North Korea launched another ballistic missile at the end of February. It’s not just the question of how do you pay for them, but at this point, if the Russian defense companies… need to be devoted to Russian troops and Russian equipment, are they really going to be able to supply India?Īndrew Yeo ( Fellow, Center for East Asia Policy Studies and SK-Korea Foundation Chair in Korean Studies In D.C., we often will China take the option to do something against Taiwan? Well, India’s actually worried that… there could be an escalation at the border again… There’s also this concern about supplies from Russia for frontline equipment. And we’ve seen this in historical readouts where India will very frankly say potentially, and this is me speculating, that “hey, you know, President Putin, if one more Indian national is killed in Russian shelling, think about what that’s going to do to Russia-India relations”… What is this going to do to Indian economic growth and particularly at a time India, like other countries, is facing concerns about inflation?… What is it going to do to India’s ability to use economic capabilities to enhance military capabilities to use in the Indo-Pacific?… India… is watching China very closely… They are varied views about whether President Xi would take this moment to take military actions elsewhere. One thing we know from history about India’s conversations with first the Soviets and the Russians is… if India wanted to be very blunt about what Russian’s actions are doing to Indian interests… those conversations will take place in private, not in public. One is that it has offered to bring back Ukrainian… refugees, which is something that Japan has not done frequently, and also to the decision to send non-lethal equipment… in addition to humanitarian assistance, which is something that Japan has traditionally done… Former Prime Minister Abe’s policy towards Russia is basically dead… The idea that economic engagement could prevent a close Russia-China strategic partnership is now discredited… Because the timing of the crisis in Ukraine comes at a time when Japan itself is redrafting, revisiting its own national security strategy, its own defense planning documents… how… this is factored in into the new strategy will have longer term repercussions… In Japan, we’re not seeing the type of security revolution that you saw in Germany, but notable change is afoot. But there are two other very rare measures here that Tokyo has adopted. So Japan has been in lockstep with the G-7 in imposing punishing sanctions, for example, freezing assets of Russian banks, removing those banks from the SWIFT messaging system, restricting central bank transactions, freezing the assets of Putin and his close associates, imposing export controls to limit the access to advanced technology. And the more recent one by Yomiuri shows that 80% of respondents agree with taking this course of action because they feel that letting Russia grab land by force could encourage China to do the same in Asia. There have been a number of polls done in recent days, one by Nikkei that showed that 61% of the Japanese public agreed with the sanctions imposed on Russia. So there’s nothing here of a mentality that “this is not our problem, this is happening in faraway lands”… And what I think is even more remarkable is that the Japanese public by and large agrees. Prime Minister Kishida condemned Russia’s war of aggression, really making a link and saying that these acts, using force to change borders, a challenge to the international order and therefore that they’re important not just in the context of European security, but also Indo-Pacific security. Japan’s response to the crisis has been remarkable.
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