TOKYO: Japanese Foreign Minister HAYASHI Yoshimasa is set to skip the upcoming meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 major economies.

The decision not to attend the two-day meeting in India from Wednesday comes as deliberations on the government’s fiscal 2023 budget will be held in the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of Japan’s parliament, on the same days.

Some in the government are concerned that Hayashi’s absence from the G-20 meeting could affect Japan’s diplomacy, especially as the country is the chair of the Group of Seven major democracies this year.

Hayashi will be the first Japanese foreign minister to skip a G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting since it became a routine event in 2017.

“As the chair of the G-7, we want to thoroughly engage in communication,” Hayashi said at a press conference Tuesday.

The government plans to send Kenji Yamada, state minister for foreign affairs, to the G-20 meeting instead.

Japan is placing importance on cooperation with India, this year’s G-20 chair, as some countries in the 20-nation framework, which includes China and Russia, are at odds with G-7 members over their stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We will connect the outcome of the G-7 summit in (the western Japan city of) Hiroshima in May to the G-20 summit in September,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said.

Under the circumstances, a senior Foreign Ministry official said that “the foreign minister’s absence is a pain.”

“I hope it doesn’t leave any hard feelings with India,” a government source said.

The Indian government announced the dates of the G-20 foreign ministers meeting on Jan. 17. According to a Foreign Ministry official, the Japanese government then began consulting with related people about Hayashi’s attendance at the meeting, but failed to gain their understanding.

The upcoming Upper House deliberations on the fiscal 2023 budget have “a very high priority,” Hiroshige Seko, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s secretary-general in the chamber, said Tuesday, suggesting that Hayashi has no choice but to skip the G-20 meeting.

Senior members of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in the Upper House had urged the government to prioritize budget deliberations as well.

After the G-20 meeting, India will host a meeting of foreign ministers from the Quad countries of Japan, the United States, Australia and India on Friday.

“We hope that (Hayashi) will at least attend the Quad meeting,” a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official said.

JIJI Press