UN General Assembly
2018

The other day, foreign students in Japan proudly returned to their home countries of Malaysia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka with new academic degrees in hand, master’s degrees in maritime safety and security policy that can be obtained only in Japan. As well as the students that Japan’s Coast Guard sends to the programme, it also takes senior officials from various coast-guard authorities in countries all over Asia. The students who graduated the other day were the third cohort to enter the programme. Maritime order is a matter not of power but of the rule of law and a rules-based order. Every year, a class learning that enduring truth and taking it as a guiding principle for their lives will head out from Japan to the seas. That is very promising, and it is Japan’s noble mission to cultivate the people who will protect and defend a free and open Indo-Pacific.