Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sunday stressed the need for the Group of Seven leaders to show a united front to prevent other countries from drawing the "wrong lessons" from the war in Ukraine, in an apparent reference to Chinese muscle-flexing in the Indo-Pacific.
Kishida highlighted the severity of the security situation surrounding Japan, citing Beijing's dispatch of ships to waters around the Senkaku Islands and its gas field explorations in the East China Sea as attempts to change the status quo by force.
"We have seen attempts to change the status quo by force continuing and increasing in the Indo-Pacific," Kishida was quoted by a senior Japanese government official as telling his G7 counterparts.