U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will present a united front on Friday, China’s most sensitive area issue, according to a senior U.S. government official.
Biden and Suga are expected to agree on a joint statement on the island claimed by the Chinese but governed democratically during Biden’s first personal meeting with a foreign leader, the official said.
Biden and Suga will also discuss Beijing’s treatment of Muslims in the Xinjiang region and its influence over Hong Kong, as they announce a $ 2 billion Japanese investment in 5G telecommunications to counter China’s Huawei Technologies. (HWT.UL)
‘You have seen a series of statements from both the United States and Japan on the transboundary conditions in Taiwan, on our pursuit of maintaining peace and stability, on maintaining the status quo, and I expect you to see both a formal statement as consultations on these matters, ” the senior administrative officer told reporters.
The last time US and Japanese leaders referred to Taiwan in a joint statement was in 1969, when the Prime Minister of Japan said that maintaining peace and security in the “Taiwan area” was important for his own security. . That was before Tokyo normalized ties with Beijing.
The move is now aimed at increasing pressure on China. However, it appears that such a statement would fall short of what the United States had hoped to see from Suga, who inherited a China policy that sought to balance security issues with deep economic ties when he took over as prime minister in September last year. .
In a statement following a meeting of U.S. defense and foreign ministers in March, the two parties stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Strait of Taiwan and shared “serious concerns” about human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
The US official said the summit’s statement would be ‘nice’ to follow, and that both countries, although they did not want to increase tensions or provoke China, wanted to send a clear signal that Beijing’s shipment of warplanes to Taiwan’s airspace is incompatible with peace and stability. read more
Zhao Lijian, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Friday that China had expressed serious concerns about what it called “collusion” between Japan and the United States, and that the countries should take China’s concerns seriously.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said on Thursday at Biden’s request to delegates that the island would work with the United States to ward off threats from Chinese military activities. read more
The visit was “another concrete display showing that the relationship between Taiwan and America is really rock solid,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said Friday after the delegation left.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said this week that it had not been decided whether there would be a joint statement, and two Japanese ruling party lawmakers familiar with the talks said officials were divided over the issue. or Suga should endorse a strong statement on Taiwan.
The US official said that Washington expects “each of our countries to have slightly different perspectives” and does not “insist that Japan sign up to each dimension of our approach in any way.”
“We also recognize the deep economic and commercial ties between Japan and China, and Prime Minister Suga wants to follow a strict course, and we respect that,” he added.
With its first personal summit with Suga and another planned with the leader of South Korea in May, Biden is working to focus US military and diplomatic resources on the Indo-Pacific and manage the growing world power in China, which Biden as considered the critical issue of foreign policy. of the era.
“The big problems that are playing out are playing out in the western Pacific, and Afghanistan has really got an excessive amount of time and attention and attention from the top leadership,” the US official said after Biden planned to to withdraw from the USA. troops from Afghanistan by 11 September.
UNITED QUAD
Biden hopes to foster joint efforts with Australia, India and Japan, known as the Quad, plus South Korea, to counter both China and a longtime enemy, North Korea. Biden and Suga are expected to announce plans for the next Quad meeting on Friday, the official said.
The presentation of a united front will require a delicate balancing act, given Japan’s and South Korea’s economic ties with China and the icy relations between Seoul and Tokyo.
“It is for us, even to the point that it is painful, for us to see the relations between Japan and South Korea drop to the current level,” the US official said.
“The political tension is such that we believe it hinders all our capabilities to be effective in Northeast Asia, and I think the president will want to discuss this in detail with Prime Minister Suga.”
Relations between Tokyo and Seoul struggled over issues related to the colonization of Korea in Korea in 1910-45, including those of Korean women being forced to work in Japanese brothels.
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