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October.19th.2024 KIP Forum "Future International Situation through the Ukraine-Russia War: What Japan Can Do "
Lecturer: Mr. Hiroshi Hashimoto, a Former Ambassador and the Diplomatic Affairs Officer
【Speech and Q&A】
In this forum, with the Russia-Ukraine War in mind, we were able to hear about the movements of countries around the world and Japan against Russia and discuss them in the debate. In the first part of his lecture, Mr. Hashimoto talked about the differences in historical perceptions between Russia and Ukraine. I was reminded that the differences in historical perceptions between the Russian Federation, which calls itself the successor to Kievan Rus', and Ukraine, which achieved independence 700 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, are still very significant. More relevant to real combat, we also heard about the effectiveness and improvements of the UN and NATO. First, we learned that not much exists in terms of how to deal with the dysfunction of the UN Security Council and that it is more practical to deal with it through General Assembly resolutions. The UN is a collective security regime that deters and sanctions armed attacks by states within a group against other states, while NATO is a group of states that exercise the right of collective self-defense against each other and sanctions armed attacks by states outside the group against states within the group. It was very interesting to learn that Japan should aim to be a medium nation, not a superpower in the future, specifically, while Russia and Ukraine are at war, Japan should support the restoration of Ukrainian cities, and after peace is established, Japan should support the restoration of Ukraine to make Japan's position stronger. At the same time, he also mentioned that each citizen could take a personal approach, and I thought that the first thing I could do was to follow the war reports and, based on them, consider what position Japan needed to take and at the same time, make donations and other contributions.
【Ground discussion and personal opinion】
In the discussion that followed the lecture, the theme was “Should foreign countries stop military support considering the damage caused by the protracted war situation, or should they look to the future and continue support for peace in the future rather than damage today? " My opinion was that it is important to make peace and restore peace, and in light of the fact that democratic nations have continued to support the Ukrainian side in the two-and-a-half-year Russia-Ukraine war to date and that the situation is not conducive to making peace, it is better to suspend support for Ukraine and make peace and restore peace, even if it is somewhat to Russia's advantage. On the other side, many people thought that if a precedent is set by allowing Russia to continue its aggression from the perspective of territorial integrity, even if peace is achieved temporarily, it will be in favor of the aggressor nation in the long run, and this is not good. Personally, I was struck by the fact that among those who said that support should be continued, few said that support should be continued to express opposition to the inhumane aspects of the massacre and removal of children by Russia, and the overwhelming majority of opinions were from the perspective of territorial integrity rather than the protection of human rights. Finally, I would like to thank the speaker, Mr. Hiroshi Hashimoto, for his valuable lecture.
Shutaro Fujimoto, Jichi Medical University, Faculty of Medicine, 2nd year