Texarkana Gazette

Japan, U.S. showcase alliance, resolve in dealing with China

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga showcased the alliance between their two countries as well as their shared resolve in dealing with China as they met at the White House on Friday in Biden’s first face-to-face talks with a foreign leader as president.

The talks featured unusually frank warnings from a Japanese leader against any effort by China to dominate the Indo-Pacific region by “force or coercion.” Suga said the visit was meant to “reaffirm the new and tight bond between us” as the U.S. and Japan deal with challenges in the region.

Suga and Biden, who wore masks for their meeting in a visit modified by precaution­s against the coronaviru­s, were seeking to challenge messaging from Chinese President Xi Jinping that America and democracie­s in general are on the decline following the political turmoil and internatio­nal withdrawal that marked Donald Trump’s presidency.

In a news conference afterward in the Rose Garden, Suga made repeated references to the “severe security environmen­t” in East Asia, where China under Xi is exerting its economic and military strength, including with military deployment­s meant to assert its disputed territoria­l claims in the region.

Suga broke from past Japanese leaders on Friday by not veiling his comments about China, an important economic partner for Japan. The prime minister said he and Biden held “serious talks on China’s influence over the peace and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific. We oppose any attempt to change the status quo by force or coercion.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had warned his Japanese counterpar­t in a call ahead of Suga’s visit to see to it that China-Japan relations “do not get involved in the so-called confrontat­ion between major countries,” according to a Chinese government readout.

The Biden administra­tion calls managing U.S. policies toward China and the IndoPacifi­c the primary challenge for the United States. That helped guide Biden’s decision, announced this week, to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanista­n and free the administra­tion to focus more on East Asia.

Biden stressed U.S. commitment­s to Japan’s defense and said the alliance — the U.S. is Japan’s only treaty ally — would “prove that democracie­s can still commit and win” and “deliver for our people.”

Biden turned to Suga at one point to note the recent victory of Japanese golfer Hideki Matsuyama in the Masters Tournament. The 29-year-old is the first Japanese player to win at Augusta National.

“You’ve got a Japanese boy coming over here, and guess what? He won the Masters,” Biden said.

Suga, a farmer’s son who rose to Japan’s highest political office after an early stint as a worker in a cardboard factory, succeeded Shinzo Abe as prime minister last September after long serving as his chief Cabinet secretary.

Suga expressed eagerness to meet with Biden early on despite global COVID-19 lockdowns. The pandemic changed the normal routine for a visit by a foreign leader, so Biden didn’t host Suga for a meal, Psaki said. Earlier Friday, Suga placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and visited with Vice President Kamala Harris. An honor guard greeted his arrival at the White House.

Suga began brief remarks to reporters before his session with Biden by expressing sympathy for the victims and families of the mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapol­is. “Innocent citizens must not be exposed to any such violence,” he said.

Shootings are far rarer in Japan, which has strict gun laws.

Suga also spoke out against a surge in attacks on Asians in the United States amid the coronaviru­s pandemic, and he and Biden pledged to fight such crimes.

The U.S. and Japanese government­s have been working to strengthen technology supply chains independen­t of China during a shortage of semiconduc­tors that’s worrying businesses around the world. Both countries are expected in coming days to make deeper commitment­s to cutting climate-wrecking fossil fuel emissions, in line with Biden’s climate summit with 40 world leaders next week.

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