As Beijing falls into step with Moscow, Tokyo mulls German-style rearmament while Seoul faces calls to join the fight

(Originaly published April 12 in “What in the World“) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky added South Korea to the list of countries he’s asking for military equipment to fight Russia’s impending offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

With China’s weapons deliveries last weekend to Serbia, Zelensky’s request potentially aligns Seoul with NATO and broadens the conflict to East Asia, where it is becoming part of a global confrontation between the “authoritarian” East and the “democratic” West. Seoul has already provided non-lethal equipment and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, but has rejected a request for surface-to-air missiles on the grounds that it needs what it has to counter the threat from neighboring North Korea.

Earlier requests by Zelensky to Japan have prompted a rapid shift there to revive its own military strength. Japan has also sent only non-lethal equipment to Ukraine, but doing even that required that Tokyo first amend its longstanding law against military exports. Japan is now debating whether to join Germany in dramatically increasing its defense budget and to acquire weapons capable of striking missile sites abroad, i.e. in North Korea. Japan already has territorial disputes with Russia in the Kuril islands north of Hokkaido and with China over the Senkaku islands to its south.

While China has worked strenuously to straddle the fence on Ukraine, the U.S. ignored early calls for it to appeal to Beijing’s ambition as mediator, instead condescending with warnings against offering Moscow any aid. With China’s own public opinion already sharply anti-U.S., China’s official messaging is increasingly parroting Moscow’s narrative of the war in Ukraine. Beijing may now have fallen off its fence, manifested in its recent missile delivery to Serbia.

Russia, meanwhile, warned Finland and Sweden against joining NATO after a report in The Times that they were in talks to do so and could be admitted by this summer. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer returned from a meeting Monday in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that Putin President Putin “has totally adopted the logic of war” and remained committed to his objectives in Ukraine, namely: rolling back America’s influence.

France, where President Emmanuel Macron is in an election battle with the far right, gave Putin what he could interpret as a new provocation. Paris has sent military police to northern Ukraine to investigate allegations of war crimes there by Russian forces. It’s the first open commitment of NATO personnel inside Ukraine since the invasion started and Putin warned that any interference would trigger unprecedented consequences.

The United Kingdom, after pledging armored vehicles and anti-ship missiles during a surprise campaign stop in Kyiv by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, turns out to have been secretly supplying Ukraine with its version of the shoulder-fired, Stinger anti-aircraft missile. Footage has emerged of Ukrainian troops using one of its laser-guided Martlet missiles to shoot down a Russian drone.