President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were holding wide-ranging talks on the White House on Friday as Japan looks to construct security cooperation with allies in a time of provocative Chinese and North Korean military motion.
The 2 administrations were also able to seal an agreement to bolster U.S.-Japanese cooperation on space with a signing ceremony by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa.
The Oval Office meeting and signing ceremony at NASA’s Washington headquarters will cap a weeklong tour for Kishida that took him to 5 European and North American capitals for talks on his effort to beef up Japan’s security.
Biden welcomed Kishida to the White House on Friday morning for the prime minister’s first visit to Washington since he took office in October 2021. Contained in the Oval Office, the U.S. president praised Japan for its “historic” increase in defense spending and pledged close cooperation on economic and security matters.
“We meet at a remarkable moment,” Biden told Kishida, adding later: “The harder job is attempting to determine how and where we disagree.”
Kishida, speaking through an interpreter, said the 2 nations “share fundamental values corresponding to democracy and the rule of law” and stressed that their joint role on the worldwide stage “is becoming even greater.”
All of it comes as Japan announced plans last month to raise defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product in five years, a dramatic increase in spending for a nation that forged a pacifist approach to its defense after World War II. Japan’s defense spending has historically remained below 1% of GDP.
“Japan is stepping up and doing so in lockstep with the US,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Blinken said this week that the U.S.-Japan space cooperation framework was a “decade within the making” and “covers the whole lot from joint research to working together to land the primary woman and person of color on the moon.”
He added that the U.S. and Japan agree that China is their “best shared strategic challenge” and confirmed that an attack in space would trigger a mutual defense provision within the U.S.-Japan security treaty.
Before Friday’s meeting of the 2 leaders, U.S. and Japanese officials announced an adjustment to the American troop presence on the island of Okinawa partially to boost anti-ship capabilities that may be needed within the event of a Chinese incursion into Taiwan or other hostile acts within the region. Japan can also be reinforcing defenses on its southwestern islands near Taiwan, including Yonaguni and Ishigaki, where recent bases are being constructed.
Japan’s push to step up defense spending and coordination comes as concerns grow that China could take military motion to seize Taiwan and that North Korea’s spike in missile testing could augur the isolated nation’s achieving its nuclear ambitions.
The talks with Biden, a Democrat, “shall be a precious opportunity to verify our close cooperation in further strengthening the Japan-U.S. alliance and our endeavor together toward achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Kishida told reporters just before departing Japan for his five-country tour.
His sit-down with Biden is the ultimate face-to-face in per week of talks with fellow Group of Seven leaders that focused largely on his efforts to extend Japan’s defense spending and urge leaders to enhance cooperation.
With Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he cemented Japan’s first defense agreement with a European nation, one that permits for the 2 countries to carry joint military exercises.
Kishida also discussed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron his hopes to enhance security cooperation between Japan and their respective nations. Germany was the lone G-7 country not on Kishida’s itinerary.
Japan last month announced plans to purchase U.S.-made Tomahawks and other long-range cruise missiles that may hit targets in China or North Korea under a more offensive security strategy, while Japan, Britain and Italy unveiled plans to collaborate on a next-generation jet fighter project.
“Just just a few years ago, there would have been some discomfort in Washington with a Japan that has this type of military capability,” said Chris Johnstone, a former National Security Council official within the Biden administration who’s now the Japan Chair on the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Those days are gone.”
Biden administration officials have praised Japan for stepping up within the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Japan was quick to affix the U.S. and other Western allies in mounting aggressive sanctions on Moscow, and Japanese automakers Mazda, Toyota and Nissan announced their withdrawal from Russia.
The Biden administration officials have been pleasantly surprised by Japan’s intensified effort to reconsider its security.
A senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity to debate negotiations with the Japanese, noted that historically negotiations involving U.S. force posture in Okinawa have been “unbelievably fraught, incredibly difficult and difficult” and infrequently took years to finish. But, the official said, negotiations before this week’s meetings were accomplished with striking speed.
he official said Biden is predicted to boost the case of Lt. Ridge Alkonis, a U.S. Navy officer deployed to Japan who was jailed after pleading guilty last yr to the negligent driving deaths of two Japanese residents in May 2021.
Alkonis’ family says he suddenly fell unconscious behind the wheel during a family trip on Mt. Fuji. He veered into parked cars and pedestrians in a parking zone, striking an elderly woman and her son-in-law, each of whom later died.
The Navy officer was sentenced in October to a few years in prison, a sentence that the family and U.S. lawmakers have called unduly harsh considering the circumstances. Alkonis also agreed to pay the victims $1.65 million in restitution.
The official added that the Biden administration was working “to search out a compassionate resolution that is consistent with the rule of law.”
Kishida met with Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday before his meeting with Biden to debate U.S.-Japan space cooperation and other issues.
