Achi news desk-
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a long-awaited visit to Washington on Tuesday that highlighted shared concerns over provocative Chinese military action in the Pacific and in a rare moment of public disagreement between the two countries over a Japanese company plan to buy an iconic US company. .
Kishida and his wife will stop by the White House on Tuesday evening before an official visit on Wednesday and a formal state dinner as President Joe Biden looks to celebrate a decades-long ally he considers a cornerstone of his Indo policy -Pacific Ocean. Kishida will be the fifth world leader to be honored by Biden with a state dinner since he took office in 2021.
Before the White House visit, Kishida laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday and stopped by the US Chamber of Commerce and met with Microsoft vice chairman and president Brad Smith. Biden and Kishida on Wednesday will hold talks and take part in a joint news conference before Biden feasts the Japanese leader with a state dinner in the East Room.
The prime minister has also been invited to address a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday. He will be only the second Japanese leader to address the body; Shinzo Abe gave a speech to Congress in 2015.
The visit comes after Biden announced last month that he opposed the planned sale of Pittsburgh-based US Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel, exposing a rift in the partnership at the very moment the two leaders plan to reinforce. Biden argued in announcing his opposition that the United States needs to “maintain strong American steel companies that are powered by American steel workers.”
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, Biden’s envoy to Tokyo, asked Monday to gauge the impact of Biden’s opposition to the US Steel acquisition on the relationship. Emanuel noted that the Biden administration in February approved a plan that would drive billions of dollars in revenue to a subsidiary of the Japanese company Mitsui in the United States for crane production in the United States.
“The relationship of the United States with Japan is much deeper and stronger and more significant than one commercial agreement,” said Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, in a joint appearance at the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies with the Japanese ambassador to Washington. . “As we would say in Chicago, you had to relax.”
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Nippon Steel announced in December that it planned to buy US Steel for $14.1 billion in cash, raising concerns about what the transaction could mean for unionized workers, supply chains and US national security. Shigeo Yamada, Japan’s ambassador to Washington, declined to comment on whether Kishida would raise the Nippon-US Steel deal with Biden.
Kishida said in the US Chamber that American investments in Japan and vice versa would make the “economies more deeply tied and inseparable.” Smith, Microsoft’s vice chairman, announced that the technology company is investing $2.9 billion in Japan over the next two years to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence operations there. Microsoft will work with the Japanese government to improve its cyber security capabilities.
“We see this as a critical investment in every Japanese company we support and the Japanese government as well,” Smith said.
Biden has sought to put more of a foreign policy focus on the Pacific even as he grapples with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the grinding Israel-Hamas war. Last year, Biden brought Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol together at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, a historic summit between the leaders of two countries with a difficult shared history.
Biden has honored Yoon with a state visit and has chosen Kishida’s predecessor, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, as the first face-to-face foreign leader visit of his presidency.
The administration is impressed by Japan’s strong support for Ukraine. Tokyo has been one of the biggest donors to Kyiv since the Russian invasion in February 2022, and Japan has increased its defense spending amid concern about China’s military assertiveness.
Yamada suggested that Kishida would underline Japan’s support for Ukraine during his appearance before Congress, and indicate why the conflict in Eastern Europe is important to his country. Biden is struggling to get House Republicans to back his call to send an additional $60 billion to Kyiv as he tries to take care of Russia.
Kishida has warned that the war in Europe could lead to conflict in East Asia, suggesting that a lax approach to Russia emboldens China.
“The prime minister’s conviction is that today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia,” Yamada said.
The Pentagon announced on Monday that the United States, United Kingdom. and Australia was considering including Japan in the AUKUS partnership, a group launched in 2021 that aims to arm Australia with nuclear-powered and conventionally armed submarines.
Beijing has condemned the AUKUS deal, which it says promotes division and could lead to military conflict in the region. China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday raised objections to Japan’s potential new role.
Kishida will stop by Washington on Thursday to participate in a meeting with President Biden and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Philippine-Chinese relations have been repeatedly tested by skirmishes between the two countries’ coast guard vessels in the disputed South China Sea.
Chinese coast guard ships also regularly approach the disputed East China Sea islands, controlled by Japan, near Taiwan. Beijing says Taiwan is part of its territory and will be brought under control by force if necessary.
“Cooperation among our three countries is extremely important in maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and in defending a free and open international order based on the rules of law,” Kishida said on Monday before leaving for Washington.
The leaders are expected to discuss plans to upgrade the US military command structure in Japan. About 54,000 US troops are stationed in Japan.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the leaders’ announcements on defense will enable “greater coordination in integrating our forces and ensuring they are best avoided and linked with other partners from the single-minded.”
Kishida and Biden are also expected to confirm Japan’s participation in NASA’s Artemis lunar program as well as its contribution of a lunar rover developed by Toyota Motor Corp. and the inclusion of a Japanese astronaut in the mission. The rover, costing about $2 billion, would be the most expensive contribution to the mission from a non-US partner to date.
Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Josh Boak and Didi Tang in Washington contributed to this report.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
