Central and Eastern European countries starting with Poland have started to look beyond China and are ready to court Japan to boost their economies.
Akio Miyajima, Ambassador of Japan to Poland, said these countries are finding the economic benefit from China is not as great as they had expected and argued that Japan should strengthen relations with these countries, especially Poland, a pro-US country, as reported by Nikkei Asia.
As Poland has been wary about the growing military ambitions of Russia and is located on the counter-Russia front line of NATO, "it should be an urgent issue for Japan to strengthen ties with Poland, which is a major country in Eastern Europe, for the purpose of keeping Russia and China in check," Miyajima said in his interview Nikkei Asia.
In Japan, it is not widely known that Poland, along with the UK, is a close ally of the U.S. among European countries. Japan is the country the US places the greatest trust on in Asia, and Poland is the most trusted country among the European Union members, as reported by Nikkei Asia.
Earlier, the administration of former President Donald Trump established close ties with Poland. The administration had good chemistry with the authoritarian nature of the Polish administration. Poland, for its part, decided it would be a good idea to have closer ties with the US to counter Russia.
Given the COVID-19 situation, US-Poland diplomacy has tended to be intermittent. Poland has a strong interest in the counter-China policy of the U.S., which Japan is well acquainted with.
It will be beneficial for Japan to share information with Poland and deepen relations with it, beginning with a discussion of deterrence against China, according to Nikkei Asia.
( With inputs from ANI )
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