“Asia can become the Ukraine of tomorrow,” warned Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday from the United States at the end of a tour of G7 countries, reports AFP.

He said he had spoken to the leaders of the G7 countries – the US, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Japan – about his “strong sense of the security crisis for East Asia”.

Fumio Kishida, whose country chairs the G7 this year, visited all member states in a week except Germany due to a scheduling problem. But he plans to go there soon.

“The lesson to be learned from Ukraine is that the security of Europe and the Indo-Pacific region are inseparable,” he said at a press conference the day after meeting with US President Joe Biden.

“The situation around Japan is deteriorating between attempts to forcefully change the status quo in the East and South China Seas and North Korea’s involvement in nuclear activities and missile launches,” he said.

He cited China’s desire to increase its influence in the disputed area of ​​the sea, which is causing friction with Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Tensions are also brewing in the region over Taiwan, an island Beijing claims as part of its territory.

Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington followed a startling announcement for a self-proclaimed pacifist country after the end of World War II: Japan will double its defense spending over the next five years.

G7 leaders will gather in May for their annual summit in Hiroshima, where the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, in the first nuclear strike in history. It is also the electoral stronghold of the Prime Minister of Japan.