Japan’s Yoshide Suga to be the first foreign leader to meet US president Joe Biden face to face
- The meeting in Washington shows the importance the US attaches to relations with Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said
- Before the summit, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will lay out the emerging US strategy toward North Korea in a meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Friday
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will become the first foreign leader to hold a face-to-face meeting with President Joe Biden in a summit planned for April 16, where China will be high on the agenda.
The meeting in Washington shows the importance the US attaches to relations with Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said in announcing the trip on Friday. “The US and Japan share the basic values of freedom, human rights and the rule of law,” he added.
The timing of the summit with the US’s most powerful ally in Asia underscores the Biden administration’s focus on shoring up ties with partners in the region, as it tries to pressure China over everything from human rights to trade and the global coronavirus vaccine roll-out. Japan walks a narrow line as it seeks to maintain close ties with its only military ally, the US, while avoiding damage to economic ties with its biggest trade partner, China.
White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting with Suga. Biden has held virtual summits with the likes of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Before the summit, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will lay out the emerging US strategy toward North Korea in a meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Friday at the US Naval Academy. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has threatened in recent months to modernise his nuclear arsenal and his regime last month test-fired ballistic missiles for the first time in a year, posing an early test for Biden’s administration.
Secretary of State Secretary of State Antony Blinken chose Japan, followed by South Korea, as the destinations for his first overseas trip in office, which took place last month. In a joint statement, Blinken, his Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi, and the two countries’ defence ministers made unusually explicit references to China’s “coercion and destabilising behaviour” and to concerns over human rights.
That followed a virtual summit between the so-called Quad of US, Japan, India and Australia, which was met with criticism from China.