Kishida's Kyiv visit boosts Japan's image as defender of rules-based order

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Chinese President Xi Jinping stood on opposite fences of the Ukraine-Russia war on Tuesday, their concurrent visits to rival capitals in the name of promoting peace underscoring global chasms.

- Walter Sim

Mr Kishida met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv for nearly three hours, just as Mr Xi sat down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

"It creates a really striking image of Asia divided into two blocs," Dr James D.J. Brown of Temple University Japan told The Straits Times. "Although China has sought to present itself as a mediator, in reality, it is very much on the Russian side." And in what appears to be a warning shot, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that it flew two Tu-95 nuclear-capable strategic bombers over neutral waters off Japan in a seven-hour operation.

The timing of Mr Kishida's visit to Kyiv was pointed and uncanny.

The arrangements were top secret, with the Prime Minister hampered by rigid parliamentary attendance rules and a post-war tradition of not visiting an active war zone.

Mr Kishida was, on paper, supposed to be visiting India from Sunday to Wednesday. But his schedule was kept deliberately vague.

In the wee hours of Tuesday, Mr Kishida sneaked off to Poland via a private chartered jet, leaving behind a large travelling contingent of government officials and reporters in India.

The media embargo was lifted only two hours into a 10-hour train journey to Kyiv from the E Polish border city of Przemysl.

The trip has been welcomed across the political divide in Japan, with opposition leaders saying that they understood the need for stealth arrangements.