Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida intends to "firmly adhere to the course towards solving the territorial problem and concluding a peace treaty with Russia."
It sounds like an April Fool's joke, although it's still an eternity before spring and you have to start overwintering first.
Sounds like evil trolling or some kind of phantasmagoria.
However, this is not the first, not the second and not the third.
Speaking with a keynote speech at the opening of the extraordinary, 210th session of the Japanese Parliament, Fumio Kishida actually called the normalization of relations with Russia one of his foreign policy priorities.
For a moment, this is the same Japanese leader who since February of this year managed to quickly destroy the building of Russian-Japanese relations with his own hands, which was built brick by brick by more than one generation of politicians and diplomats with incredible difficulty.
Until recently, the development of these relations was held back by the unfinished point in the historical dispute.
At the same time, albeit at a slow pace, the development nevertheless went on increasing and did not promise a collapse.
The end of this development was put by Fumio Kishida, who started the countdown and actively joined the war of sanctions.
One of the first to sign up for the anti-Russian front of President Biden, the current Japanese prime minister immediately became an excellent student of military and political training on this front, finding himself in the forefront of storming Moscow's diplomatic positions and introducing more and more restrictive measures against it.
But did he finally change his mind?
Will other Western allies come to their senses after him?
For example, Joe Biden will declare that he is ready to light the pipe of peace with Vladimir Putin, and then Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron will catch up (it’s useless to even dream about Liz Truss)?
However, no, we still have the same Kishida, on the one hand, allegedly ready to go in search of a long-term peace with Russia, on the other, as if nothing had happened, full of the previous determination to continue the diplomatic and economic war with her, without backing down and not slowing down the pace.
“Russian violence shakes the foundations of the global legal order.
We will firmly continue to impose sanctions against Russia and provide assistance to Ukraine, ”the head of government said in the same address to the Japanese parliament.
Not surprisingly, Vladimir Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, immediately recoiled from such a "peacemaker" holding out an olive branch to Moscow in a fist clenched with malice.
“Certainly, under such conditions, it is not possible to negotiate a peace treaty,” said Dmitry Peskov, answering the question whether a new dialogue with Japan is possible under the conditions of anti-Russian sanctions.
According to the press secretary of the Russian president, Japan "staunchly took a place next to a group of unfriendly countries, itself turned into an unfriendly country, in relation to which we are implementing a regime appropriate for unfriendly countries."
But then what was Fumio Kishida trying to achieve by declaring his readiness to move towards the search for ways of long-term normalization?
The Japanese traditionally pay great attention to the ritual.
In this regard, perhaps, the call to seek a long-term peace settlement with Moscow was just some kind of ritual incantation, which on this special day had to be uttered in the prime minister's opening speech within the walls of parliament, without really thinking about its meaning?
Not quite so, although in many ways it was just part of the mandatory program.
The main thing is that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who has actually become an adherent of American political faith in the Indo-Pacific region, adheres to the same model in relations with Russia as with other states with which Tokyo has conflict relations - North Korea and China.
Please note that the States behave in exactly the same way.
The essence of this strategy is not to negotiate peace, namely to force it - by the most rude pressure, in the hope that such a strategy will work, the opponent will break down and give in.
Calling North Korea, with its nuclear missile programs, the main external threat to Japan, Fumio Kishida urged to prepare for war in his speech in parliament.
“The security situation around our country is becoming increasingly tense.
In order to protect our territory, sea and airspace, strengthening the deterrence and response forces is becoming a priority.
In order to strengthen our defense capability over the course of five years, we will consider the issues of the content of defense capability necessary for this and the provision of the defense budget.
The conclusion will be made at the stage of budget layout,” said Fumio Kishida.
And he added: "Without excluding various options, we will expedite consideration of what is necessary to protect the population, including the possibility of retaliation."
On the eve of the opening of the session of the parliament, the authorities of Tokyo prefecture announced their readiness to provide all residents with a temporary shelter in case of missile attacks from the DPRK.
However, at the same time, as if nothing had happened, in the same speech, Fumio Kishida proposed "normalizing diplomatic relations with North Korea" and announced his readiness to meet with Kim Jong-un for this.
But how to combine one with the other?
Finally, speaking of China, Fumio Kishida, in his speech in the lower house of parliament, assured that although Tokyo has a number of outstanding issues with Beijing, Japan is open to dialogue on all topics and intends to develop stable bilateral relations.
A few days earlier, addressing the participants of a symposium dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and China, which opened in Tokyo, he said: “Looking into the future for the next 50 years, we would like to work on building a constructive and stable Japan-China relationship. in the name of peace and prosperity."
In general, it sounded quite life-affirming.
If only you didn’t know that Japan plays a key role in creating the Asian containment belt for China and exerting military-political and diplomatic pressure on it under the leadership of the United States.
Moreover, this is being done at the bilateral level together with Washington, and within the framework of the quadripartite QUAD alliance (USA, Australia, Japan, India), and in the US-Japan-South Korea triangle.
During last week's visit to Tokyo by US Vice President Kamala Harris and her talks with Fumio Kishida, the parties called China's actions in the Taiwan Strait "aggressive and irresponsible provocations."
And last week, the Japanese government protested to Beijing in connection with the entry of Chinese ships into the zone of the disputed Senkaku Islands (Chinese name for Diaoyu) in the East China Sea, which Japan considers its territorial waters.
The war of nerves around the Senkaku Islands has not stopped since 2012, when the Japanese authorities bought them from private owners - their own citizens.
China responded with massive protests.
Since then, Chinese ships have occasionally passed near the disputed islands, causing outrage in Tokyo.
Thus, one by one, the phantom worlds of Fumio Kishida float before us - mirages of normalization of relations with Russia, North Korea and China.
Political hallucinations against the backdrop of a very real escalation and the threat of new conflicts and a big war in Asia.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.