Defense Minister Minoru Kihara used a speech Saturday to warn of the growing possibility of simultaneous crises erupting in the Indo-Pacific and beyond — a threat not entirely unimaginable amid Chinese moves near Taiwan and the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
“Unfortunately, it must be said that the risk of multiple, simultaneous crises and accidental clashes across regions has increased significantly in recent years,” Kihara said in his debut address at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, calling the destabilization of regional security “remarkable.”
“We absolutely cannot be optimistic about the security environment in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said. “We cannot rule out the possibility that an incident in the region could occur in the future and shake the foundation of the international order.”