Fumio Kishida will meet with the leaders of the USA, Britain, France, Italy and Canada
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a major tour of Japan’s most important Western allies on Monday after unveiling his country’s biggest military modernization program since World War II as Tokyo considers steps of countering China’s growing defense power.
Kishida, who will host a conference of the G7 group of most economically developed member states in May, will meet the leaders of the US, Britain, France, Italy and Canada this week. The talks are expected to cover issues related to economic security, semiconductors (chips), the war in Ukraine, and the escalating tension with nuclear-armed China and North Korea.
“As the leader of the country holding the G7 presidency for this year, I will make the visit confirming the reasoning we have on a number of issues,” Kishida told a Sunday news program.
“With the US we will discuss the deepening of our bilateral alliance, but also ways to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” the Japanese prime minister said.
He is visiting London and Rome after agreeing last month to develop a new fighter jet with those countries. The signing of an agreement with Britain to draw up the legal framework that will allow mutual visits between the armed forces of the two countries is also expected, as the “Yomiuri” newspaper reported on Friday.
The agenda of issues to be discussed during the final stop of the Japanese prime minister’s visits to the White House on Friday is expected to include Japan’s plans to equip itself with missiles capable of hitting targets in China or South Korea , a bilateral defense agreement, but also efforts to limit China’s access to sophisticated microcircuits.
Tokyo and Washington hope Kishida’s more assertive defense policy announced last month, a further step beyond Japan’s postwar peace constitution, will plug a widening missile gap with China, preventing Beijing from taking military action. action, especially against Taiwan’s neighbor.
“He will show the US that this effort is coming to an end and that as the G7 conference approaches, Japan will get to the bottom of the issues with the rest of the G7 member countries, confirming their stance on Ukraine and on Asia.” , as stated by political analyst Atsuo Ito.
Japan’s new defense capabilities are likely to require Washington and Tokyo to revise guidelines governing the two countries’ roles in a decades-old alliance allowing the US to keep warships, fighter jets and thousands of troops in Japan .
Those guidelines were last revised in 2015, and the issue is likely to be on the agenda for talks by Japan’s defense and foreign ministers with their US counterparts on Wednesday, ahead of a meeting between Kishida and President Joe Biden. , as a Japanese Defense Ministry spokesman said on Friday.
In the semiconductor sector, Japan and the US are deepening their cooperation on the development of technologically advanced chips, given the escalating trade tension with China.
The two countries are seeking to ensure that their manufacturers have access to components that are considered key to high-tech industries such as data storage, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.
Although Kishida has said he supports President Biden’s effort to limit China’s access to sophisticated microcircuit manufacturing equipment with export restrictions, he has not agreed to comprehensive restrictions on microcircuit manufacturing equipment exports imposed by the US government. in October.
Even without major announcements, Kishida hopes his visit to Japan’s G7 allies will bolster his own waning support at home following the resignations of members of his government and a scandal over ties. of his party with the controversial Unification Church, analysts say.
“Conducting a successful G7 conference will give him maximum political benefits, and his visit was prepared for that,” said Iro Hino, a political science professor at Waseda University.
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