"This is what the Japanese people want": meeting with Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Serhiy Korsunskyi

Lecturers and students of the department of international relations and social sciences of NULES of Ukraine joined the meeting with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Japan Serhiy Korsunskyi held within the framework of the project "Diplomatic front" on the initiative of the Center for international security and Euro-Atlantic integration and the EU Information Center at Uzhgorod National University.

Mr. Serhiy Korsunskyi noted that Ukraine's relations with Japan, as well as with Asian countries in general, developed poorly until 2019. However, since the start of a new full-scale stage of the russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the situation has changed dramatically.  For the first time in its post-war history, the leader of a foreign state, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi addressed the Japanese parliament. For the first time, Japan is providing assistance to the Armed Forces of another state.
The support of Ukraine as a Japanese society is extraordinary. The country's leadership provides significant humanitarian assistance to Ukrainians, in particular, it has hosted two thousand Ukrainian refugees. "We do this to Ukrainians because that's what the Japanese people want," the Japanese government says.
According to Serhiy, Japan should become a separate direction of Ukraine's foreign policy, it should not be written separated by commas with other Asian states. Now it has significantly increased its defense budget and has become the third largest state in the world in terms of military spending, despite its own pacifist constitution.
Mr. Ambassador gave some useful advice on communication with Japan and other East Asian countries, in particular, stressed the importance of using social networks, in particular Twitter, which is popular in the region. He noted that messages should be understandable to a specific audience and written in their native language. And countries that use hieroglyphs have imaginative thinking, so the message must be supplemented with pictures.

Students and lecturers of NULES of Ukraine were extremely active during the meeting. Olesya Ryabushkina asked about the peculiarities of diplomatic etiquette that are characteristic of Japanese people during diplomatic meetings. Serhiy Korsunskyi shared his own experience on this issue and noted that in order to learn Japanese etiquette, you need to take a whole detailed course.

The head of the department, professor, Oleksandr Shevchuk, associate professors of the department Lyudmyla Lanovyuk, Natalia Kravchenko, Bohdan Hrushetskyi also asked their questions. They were concerned about security issues in the Asia-Pacific region, the de-occupation of the Northern territories, and Japan's readiness to cooperate in the scientific field.

Associate professor of the department of international relations and social sciences Lyudmyla Lanovyuk notes, "It was an extremely interesting and informative meeting, especially from the point of view of the practical work of our diplomatic missions in the countries of the Asian region. The dialogue with a highly qualified specialist of the diplomatic front provided an opportunity to discover Japan as a country that actively supports Ukraine in its fight against the aggressor. The experience of such an event has shown that such meetings are extremely necessary today for training international specialists."
1st year master's degree student Artur Bruslik talks about his impressions of the meeting, "I am grateful to my department for the opportunity to listen to the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Japan Serhiy Korsunskyi.
Mr. Serhiy took his time to share his experience of working in Japan, and he also told the most important details of observing diplomatic etiquette when negotiating with Japanese representatives. It was a discovery for me that in Japan it is mandatory to exchange business cards in business etiquette and be sure to show interest in the business card that you took from your partner. After all, for the Japanese, this is an indicator of the level of your respect for them.
Moreover, Mr. Korsunsky answered all the students' questions and dispelled some myths and stereotypes about Japan's foreign policy, for which I am sincerely grateful to him."

Bohdan Hrushetskyi,
associate professor of the department of international relations and social sciences