Biden welcomes Japan, Philippines leaders at White House summit

US PRESIDENT Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will showcase a strong and growing partnership during a White House state visit on Wednesday (Apr 10) focused on joint defence cooperation to deter an aggressive China.

The summit kicks off with an official arrival ceremony on the White House South Lawn, followed by a closed-door meeting, a joint news conference planned for the Rose Garden, a state dinner and a performance by musician Paul Simon.

Kishida will address the US Congress on Thursday and join Biden and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr for a meeting expected to focus on Beijing’s South China Sea incursions.

The US and Japan have hammered out about 70 agreements on defence cooperation, including moves to upgrade the US military command structure in Japan to make it better able to work with Japanese forces in a crisis.

Biden and Kishida are also expected to announce steps to allow more joint development of military and defence equipment.

The two leaders will announce plans for a joint lunar space mission and projects to work together on artificial intelligence research, US officials said.

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Japan will now be a “full global partner” with the United States, with influence far beyond its region and into Europe and the Middle East a senior Biden administration official told reporters on Tuesday, summing up the deals.

“I want to stress that Japan and the US are global partners in maintaining and strengthening the rules-based, free and open international order,” Kishida told Nikkei. “We will also bolster our defence and national security cooperation.”

China is attempting to isolate Japan and the Philippines. By meeting the leaders of those two nations this week in Washington, Biden is aiming to “flip the script and isolate China”, the US official said.

Fitch cut its outlook on China’s sovereign credit rating to negative on Wednesday, citing risks to public finances as the economy faces increasing uncertainty in its shift to new growth models.

On Thursday, Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Marcos, whom he welcomed in Washington just last year, before the pair join Kishida for a trilateral summit.

The visit may give a political boost to Kishida, whose popularity has waned at home. He is being greeted with great fanfare, with Japanese flags on display throughout Washington.

Besides the state dinner, Biden and his wife Jill took Kishida and his wife Yuko to a private dinner at a local restaurant on Tuesday night.

On Thursday, Kishida will become only the second Japanese leader to address a joint meeting of Congress after his assassinated predecessor, Shinzo Abe, gave a speech in 2015.

Overshadowing the visit is a controversy over the planned US$15 billion acquisition of American steel- maker US Steel by Japan’s Nippon Steel, a deal some say is “on life support” after criticism by Biden and former president Donald Trump, his rival in November’s US election.

Also looming are Japanese concerns that if Trump wins a second term he might seek a deal with China that could destabilise the region. REUTERS