Photo: The Canadian Press
President Joe Biden shakes hands with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as they meet in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, in Washington.
President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida held wide-ranging talks at the White House on Friday as Japan seeks to build security cooperation with allies amid provocative Chinese and North Korean military actions.
The two administrations were also set to sign an agreement to strengthen US-Japan space cooperation with a signing ceremony by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa.
The Oval Office meeting and signing ceremony at NASA headquarters in Washington will conclude Kishida’s week-long tour, which has taken him to five European and North American capitals for talks on his efforts to strengthen 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. In the Oval Office, the US president praised Japan for its “historic” increase in defense spending and promised close cooperation on economic and security issues.
“We’re meeting at a remarkable time,” Biden told Kishida, adding later, “The harder work is trying to figure out how and where we disagree.”
Kishida, speaking through an interpreter, said the two nations “share fundamental values such as democracy and the rule of law” and stressed that their joint role on the world stage “is getting even bigger.”
It all comes as Japan announced plans last month to raise defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product over 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 step with the United States,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
Blinken said this week that the U.S.-Japan space cooperation framework is “a decade in the making” and “encompasses everything from joint research to working together to land the first woman and person of color on the moon.”
He added that the US and Japan agree that China is their “greatest shared strategic challenge” and confirmed that an attack in space would trigger a mutual defense provision in the US-Japan security treaty.
Ahead of Friday’s meeting between the two leaders, US and Japanese officials announced an adjustment to US troop presence on the island of Okinawa in part to improve anti-shipping capabilities that would be needed in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or other hostilities in the region. Japan is also strengthening defenses on its southwestern islands near Taiwan, including Yonaguni and Ishigaki, where new bases are being built.
Japan’s drive to increase defense spending and coordination comes amid growing concerns that China may take military action to seize Taiwan and that a surge in North Korea’s missile tests could herald the achievement of the isolated nation’s nuclear ambitions.
Talks with Biden, a Democrat, “will be a valuable opportunity to reaffirm our close cooperation to further strengthen the Japan-US alliance and our efforts together to achieve a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Kishida told reporters just before departing for Japan his five-country tour.
His meeting with Biden is the latest face-to-face in a week of talks with other Group of Seven leaders that have focused largely on his efforts to increase Japan’s defense spending and push leaders to improve cooperation.
With British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he cemented Japan’s first defense agreement with a European nation, allowing the two countries to conduct joint military exercises.
Kishida also discussed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron his hopes for improving security cooperation between Japan and their respective nations. Germany was the only G7 country not included in Kishida’s route.
Last month, Japan announced plans to buy US-made Tomahawks and other long-range cruise missiles that can strike targets in China or North Korea in a more offensive security strategy, while Japan, Britain and Italy unveiled plans to cooperate on a jet next generation fighter jet project.
“Just a few years ago, there would have been some discomfort in Washington with Japan having such a military capability,” said Chris Johnston, a former National Security Council official in the Biden administration who is now the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. research. “Those days are gone.”
Biden administration officials praised Japan for stepping up action after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Japan quickly joined the US and other Western allies in imposing aggressive sanctions against Moscow, and Japanese automakers Mazda, Toyota and Nissan announced their withdrawal from Russia.
Biden administration officials were pleasantly surprised by Japan’s increased efforts to overhaul its security.
A senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations with the Japanese, noted that historically negotiations involving the position of US forces in Okinawa have been “incredibly tense, incredibly challenging and difficult” and have often taken years to complete. But, the official said, talks ahead of this week’s meetings have been completed with astonishing speed.
The official said Biden is expected to raise the case of Lt. Ridge Alkonis, a U.S. Navy officer deployed to Japan who was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty last year to the negligent deaths of two Japanese citizens in May 2021 Mr.
Alkonis’ family says he suddenly passed out behind the wheel during a family trip to Mount Fuji. He plowed into parked cars and pedestrians in a parking lot, hitting an elderly woman and her brother-in-law, who later died.
The naval officer was sentenced in October to three years in prison, a sentence that the family and US lawmakers called unduly harsh given the circumstances. Alkonis also agreed to pay the victims $1.65 million in restitution.
The official added that the Biden administration is working “to find a compassionate solution that is consistent with the rule of law.” Neither Biden nor Kishida answered pointed questions about Alkonis at the White House, and outside his gates, about two dozen demonstrators called for Alkonis’ release.
Kishida met with Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday before his meeting with Biden to discuss US-Japan space cooperation and other issues.
Harris chairs the administration’s National Space Council. The two discussed strengthening “space cooperation across multiple sectors, including security, commercial and civilian space capabilities,” according to a summary of their meeting at the White House.
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