and also to give us more insights in in terms of what this meeting between joe biden and the japanese prime minister fumio kashida of course means we are joined in by mr tomohiku taniguchi who's joining us live from tokyo he's been a former special adviser to the cabinet of the former japanese prime minister shinzo abe so thank you very much indeed for taking time out and speaking to us here on beyond the first question that i want to ask you is you know this is a pretty difficult time for the whole world we're just emerging from the corvette 19 pandemic there's a war that is raging in ukraine and the american president is of course in tokyo for the crucial quad summit how do you look at this wizard by the american president and also the court summit that is slated to be held tomorrow i am afraid that your sound is terribly howling uh would you like to state that question again uh please right we'll try to fix the audio issues that that we seem to have with you my question to you was what do you make of joe biden's visit to tokyo at this point of time quartz summit is of course later to be held tomorrow how do you see the american japan equation at this point of time how to deal with china is the long-term challenge a mega challenge that dominates our century the 21st century russia ukraine war is a an immediate concern but think about the size and power of the country russia is way small it's one third of japan's economy as big as south korea's by the way china is getting even bigger day in day out it's not a democracy it's not interested in any way in democracy it's interested in building up its arsenal it's interested in forcefully coerce uh its neighboring nations uh at its will and it's trying to rewrite status quo at its will that's the trend that the united states and japan should stand firm against right and then um joe biden must show that the united states is willing to do that together with japan and other members of the indo-pacific recipe region that's why the united states president has made a tour in south korea and in japan absolutely indeed now quad is not a military alliance orcas is my question to you is quad is essentially a forum that was brought into existence to try and counter the belgians of china but do you think quad which is not a military alliance is going to be effective in countering china quad the beauty of quad is self-evident it's a gathering of transparent responsible democratic government uh governments and uh china has no ally it's got no partner it's not uh it's not god it's got no friends may i say so so quad by sticking together can show again in the longest term possible that uh when it comes to setting norms and rules maintaining peace and security it's on the shoulders not on china but on democratic maritime nations such as india australia united states and japan all right now you know i want to ask you this question because uh there is a lot of talk that is happening once russia had invaded into ukraine many people said that china would perhaps use this as a template to try and invade into taiwan this is something that has been spoken about a lot but the question that i want to ask you is china's economy effectively relies on exporting the goods that it produces do you think china would be willing to get into some kind of a military adventurism and risk isolation and risk losing out the markets to which it exports its goods and and do you think this this expectation that some people have in some circles that china may militarily you know try to coerce other territories in the neighborhood is actually far-fetched because you know getting into some kind of military adventurism is just not going to work out for china um it is not a hypothetical theory it is written on the wall it is engraved in the stone it is no longer a question whether or not china is going to invade taiwan the question is how soon china is going to do that i'm not talking about hypothetical theories i'm not giving you my own theories it is what the chinese refuse leader xi jinping has said a number of times so the situation is dire it's far more dire than some people as you quote may say right and very quickly my last question is jovan has also endorsed japan's plan to beef up its defenses how soon do you think japan would be willing to do it japan of course has a pesfest constitution and how soon will japan now increase the spending that it does on its defenses um spending on defense has got nothing absolutely nothing to do with japan's written constitution japan has spent far less amount of money than adequate it's only spending uh 1.24 as opposed to gdp the ruling party the liberal democratic party of japan is now proposing that over the next five years in a gradual but steady manner japan should increase its defense budget to make it two percent uh against japan's gdp all right very interesting thank you very much indeed mr taniguchi for joining us and getting us all those insights this of course is a crucial meeting of the leaders that is happening in tokyo will of course be tracking but thank you very much indeed so for taking time out and speaking to us all is now available in your country download the app now and get all the news on the move
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