According to a senior US government official, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will present a united front on Taiwan, China’s most sensitive territorial issue, at a summit on Friday.
Biden and Suga are expected to agree on a joint statement on the China-claimed but democratically-ruled island during Biden’s first face-to-face meeting with a foreign leader, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Biden and Suga will also discuss Beijing’s treatment of Muslims in the Xinjiang region and its impact on Hong Kong, while announcing 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 about the cross-border conditions in Taiwan, about our desire to maintain peace and stability, about preserving the status quo, and I expect you will see both a formal statement. as consultations on these matters, ”the senior administration official told reporters.
The last time US and Japanese leaders referred to Taiwan in a joint statement was in 1969, when the Japanese Prime Minister said that maintaining peace and security in the “Taiwan area” was important to his own security. That was before Tokyo normalized ties with Beijing.
The move is now intended to increase pressure on China. However, such a statement seems unlikely to live up to what the United States hoped to see from Suga, who inherited a China policy that tried to balance security concerns and deep economic ties when he took over as prime minister last September.
In a statement following a US-Japan defense and foreign ministers meeting in March, the two sides underlined the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and shared “grave concerns” about human rights in Hong Kong. Kong and Xinjiang.
The US official said the summit statement would “tie in nicely” with that, and that while both countries did not want to raise tension or provoke China, they wanted to send a clear signal that Beijing’s shipment of warplanes to Taiwan’s airspace was incompatible with peace and stability.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told delegates visiting Biden at Biden’s request on Thursday that the island would work with the United States to deter threats from Chinese military activities.
China has never relinquished the use of force to take Taiwan under its control.
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said this week that a joint statement had not yet been decided, and two Japanese ruling party lawmakers familiar with the discussions said officials are divided as to whether Suga is a strong force. statement on Taiwan.
The US official said Washington expected “each of our countries to have slightly different perspectives” and would not “insist that Japan somehow join every dimension of our approach.”
“We also recognize the deep economic and trade ties between Japan and China and Prime Minister Suga wants to take a careful course, and we respect that,” he added.
With his first personal summit with Suga and another scheduled with South Korea’s leader in May, Biden is working to focus US military and diplomatic resources on the Indo-Pacific and manage China’s growing global power, which Biden considers as the critical issue of foreign policy. of the era.
“The big problems that are unfolding are in the Western Pacific, and Afghanistan was really getting a disproportionate amount of time and attention and attention to top leadership,” the US official said after Biden announced plans to withdraw from the US. troops from Afghanistan by September 11.
UNITED QUAD
Biden hopes to spur joint efforts with Australia, India and Japan known as the Quad, plus South Korea, to counter both China and an old enemy, North Korea. Biden and Suga are expected to announce plans for the next Quad meeting on Friday, the official said.
Presenting a united front requires a delicate balancing act, given Japan’s and South Korea’s economic ties with China and the icy relations between Seoul and Tokyo.
“We are concerned, even to the point that it is painful, that relations between Japan and South Korea are declining to current levels,” the US official said.
“The political tensions are such that we think it actually hinders all of our ability 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 are ragged on issues related to the Japanese colonization of Korea in 1910-45, including those of Korean women forced to work in wartime Japanese brothels.
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