“I want to be clear: the United States is fully and completely committed to the alliance,” the US president said.
US President Joe Biden warmly welcomed the Japanese Prime Minister today Fumio Kishida at the White House and said the US remains firmly committed to its alliance with Japan, while welcoming the “historic increase” in Japanese defense spending.
Kishida is in Washington on the last stop of a tour of the G7 industrial powers and is seeking to strengthen longstanding alliances amid growing concern in Japan about growing regional security threats from China, North Korea and Russia.
At the meeting in the Oval Office, which Mr Joe Biden called a “landmark moment” in the US-Japan alliance, the US president said the two nations had never been closer.
“I want to be clear: the United States is fully and completely committed to the alliance,” he stressed, while thanking Kishida for his strong leadership in close cooperation on technology and economics.
Kishida thanked Biden for their work USA on regional security and said: “Japan and the US are currently facing the most challenging and complex security environment in recent history.” He said Tokyo had formulated its new defense strategy, released last month, “to ensure peace and prosperity in the region.”
Kishida stressed at the start of an earlier meeting with US Vice President Kamala Harris that the topics of his talks in Washington included the US-Japan alliance as well as “the establishment of a free and open Indo-Pacific”, a reference also used by two sides to describe efforts to push back China.
Harris said the relationship USA-Japan is “unbreakable” and that the two sides will sign an agreement on space cooperation later in the day.
Japan last month announced its largest military deployment since World War II – a dramatic departure from seven decades of pacifism, in a move largely fueled by concerns about Chinese actions in the region.
The foreign and defense ministers of the US and Japan met on Wednesday and announced increased security cooperation after nearly two years of talks. US officials have praised Tokyo’s military development plans.
Japan’s military reform plan calls for doubling defense spending to 2 percent of GDP and procuring missiles that can hit ships or land targets at a range of 1,000 kilometers.
Biden and Kishida are expected to discuss security and the global economy, and their talks are likely to include controls on semiconductor-related exports to China, after Washington announced tough restrictions last year, a senior US official said.
Japan currently holds the rotating presidency of the G7 and also held a two-year term in UN Security Council on January 1, while he holds the rotating monthly presidency of the 15-member SA for January.
Kishida said he supports Biden’s effort to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors with export restrictions. However, it has not agreed to cover the sweeping restrictions on exports of chip-making equipment that the United States imposed in October.
The US official said Washington is working closely with Japan on the issue and believes they share a similar vision even if their legal structures are different. He said the more countries and major players supported the controls, the more effective they would be.
A Japanese official said economic security, including semiconductors, was likely to be discussed but that no announcement on this was expected from the meeting.
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