Japan and Lithuania said on Wednesday they will create a bilateral framework to discuss security issues amid Russia’s protracted war in Ukraine as well as China’s growing military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Lithuanian counterpart Ingrida Simonyte issued a joint statement after their meeting in Tokyo, promising to strengthen ties between the two nations by sharing knowledge on international security issues under a new dialogue framework, though without specifying any time frame.
A statement condemning Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine said the two leaders shared “a growing recognition of the inseparability of Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific security”.
Kishida told reporters at a joint news conference with Simonyt that Russian nuclear blackmail is “a threat to the peace and stability of the international community and is therefore absolutely unacceptable,” adding that the actual use of nuclear weapons must not occur.
They also aired their wariness over “expansion of military power without transparency and unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force” in the Indo-Pacific, in an apparent reference to Beijing’s assertive territorial claims and military build-up in the East and South China Seas. .
Simonyte told a press conference that recent geopolitical challenges such as China’s economic pressure, Russia’s war and North Korea’s missile launches “point to the need for like-minded nations to work more closely together.”
Lithuania, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, shares borders with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Moscow’s close ally Belarus.
Also on Wednesday, the defense ministers of Japan and Finland pledged unity against Russia over its war in Ukraine.