BIDEN AND KISHIDA ‘TO UNVEIL DOZENS OF DELIVERABLES’
Leaders aiming to cement partnership and deter China expected to agree on military integration, manufacturing projects and space cooperation
US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were to unveil nearly six dozen “deliverables” insecurity, economic and people-to-people areas, senior Biden administration officials said hours before the leaders met yesterday.
Their long-anticipated summit is aimed at further cementing their partnership as tensions mount in the Indo-Pacific region. It comes as China takes an increasingly muscular stance in the South China Sea and is aimed at deterring Beijing through a growing latticework of security and economic arrangements, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“We will judge it to be a remarkable summit,” one of the officials said of the projected number of outcomes. “Seventy is not common. Occasionally we have a dozen, maybe 20 at the outside. This is probably the largest number of substantial deliverables that we’ve seen of its kind.”
The officials declined to provide specifics but indicated that many would relate to reorganising and integrating their two militaries and new joint operating command structures. Some 54,000 US troops are stationed in Japan.
US officials warned that even after particulars were disclosed, the reorganisation would take months as the two defence bureaucracies wrangle over details and implementation.
Other announcements are expected to involve tapping Japan’s manufacturing expertise to fill gaps in the overstretched US military-industrial structure with construction of American naval vessels, aircraft and other equipment years behind schedule.
There would also be five space cooperation agreements, the officials said, likely to involve participation of a Japanese astronaut in a future Artemis moon-landing mission and a US$2 billion moon rover project overseen by Toyota.
Also expected are several people-to-people announcements: an artificial-intelligence partnership between Carnegie Mellon and Keio universities, several Japanese firms and Microsoft; a US$50 million tie-up between Washington state’s University of Washington, the University of Tsukuba, Amazon and Nvidia; and the creation of a US$12 million fund to promote high school exchanges between the nations.
Beyond the deliverables, officials said, this week’s summits underscored the merits of prioritising a latticework of groupings. When China tries to punish Australia or the Philippines economically or militarily and allies respond with joint naval patrols and trilateral arrangements, it is ultimately Beijing that stands alone, they said.
“The country that’s isolated is China, not the Philippines,” another senior official said, with the leading partner being Japan.
“In the past, it was all about the defence of Japan. They are stepping beyond that … They are a global partner.”
US officials acknowledged there was anxiety in foreign capitals over whether newly minted partnerships under Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy would last should Biden lose his re-election bid to former president Donald Trump in November. Some countries had decided to lie low, while others doubled down, they said. But they expressed confidence the architecture would withstand the test of time.
“We think it creates a momentum of its own,” one official said.
Although US-Japan relations are increasingly close, officials declined to say definitively whether Japan was ready to join the Five Eyes – an intelligence alliance composed of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the US – or fight alongside the US in a war.
“It’s fair to say our Japanese partners have taken substantial steps on information security,” one official said. “There is still more work to do.”
Biden and Kishida will also join a trilateral summit today with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr as the Biden administration works to bolster its network of Indo-Pacific economic and security agreements amid growing maritime tensions.
In addition to meetings with Biden and a state dinner last night in the East Room, Kishida has been invited to address a joint meeting of Congress today to be only the second Japanese leader to address the body after prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2015.
One blemish colouring ties between the two leaders is Biden’s decision last month to oppose a US$41 billion takeover bid by Nippon Steel for US Steel on national security grounds.
The US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, sought to downplay the effect of the rejection on the relationship, noting the Biden administration approved a multibillion US dollar deal in February for Japan’s Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to build container cranes.
“The United States’ relationship with Japan is a lot deeper and stronger and more significant than a single commercial deal,” Emanuel said.
Biden has focused heavily on the Pacific since coming to power as a way to counter China’s rising might, even as the administration has been forced to grapple with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and war between Israel and Hamas.
As it has become more stretched, it has increasingly leaned on Japan to pursue economic and diplomatic initiatives with Southeast Asia and Pacific island nations.
China has expanded its island building activity in the South China Sea, increasingly challenged US “freedom of navigation” flights and voyages, used water cannons and other tactics against Philippine vessels and greatly expanded its coastguard and naval fleet in recent years.
In addition to the Quad, the US has organised the Japan-South Korea-US trilateral; the Aukus alliance, a pact comprising Australia, Britain and the US; and the 14-nation Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.
Biden administration officials repeatedly say these are not aimed at any particular country, and so far Beijing has not reacted particularly strongly.
In the past, it was all about the defence of Japan. They are stepping beyond that A SENIOR OFFICIAL IN WASHINGTON