President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were holding wide-ranging talks at the White House on Friday as Japan looks to build security cooperation with allies in a time of provocative Chinese and North Korean military action.
The two administrations were also ready to seal an agreement to bolster US-Japanese cooperation on space with a signing ceremony by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa.
The Oval Office meeting and signing ceremony at NASA's Washington headquarters will cap a weeklong tour for Kishida that took him to five European and North American capitals for talks on his effort to beef up Japan's security.
Biden welcomed Kishida to the White House on Friday morning for the prime minister's first visit to Washington since he took office in October 2021. Inside the Oval Office, the US president praised Japan for its “historic” increase in defense spending and pledged close cooperation on economic and security matters.
“We meet at a remarkable moment,” Biden told Kishida, adding later: “The more difficult job is trying to figure out how and where we disagree.”
Kishida, speaking through an interpreter, said the two nations “share fundamental values such as democracy and the rule of law” and stressed that their joint role on the global stage “is becoming even greater.”
It all comes as Japan announced plans last month to raise defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product in five years, a dramatic increase in spending for a nation that forged a pacifist approach to its defense after World War II. Japan's defense spending has historically remained below 1% of GDP.
“Japan is stepping up and doing so in lockstep with the United States,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
Blinken said this week that the US-Japan space cooperation framework was a “decade in the making” and “covers everything from joint research to working together to land the first woman and person of color on the moon.”
He added that the US and Japan agree that China is their "greatest shared strategic challenge” and confirmed that an attack in space would trigger a mutual defense provision in the US-Japan security treaty.
Before Friday's meeting of the two leaders, US and Japanese officials announced an adjustment to the American troop presence on the island of Okinawa in part to enhance anti-ship capabilities that would be needed in the event of a Chinese incursion into Taiwan or other hostile acts in the region.
Japan is also reinforcing defenses on its southwestern islands close to Taiwan, including Yonaguni and Ishigaki, where new bases are being constructed.
Japan’s push to step up defense spending and coordination comes as concerns grow that China could take military action to seize Taiwan and that North Korea's spike in missile testing could augur the isolated nation's achieving its nuclear ambitions.
The talks with Biden, a Democrat, "will be a precious opportunity to confirm our close cooperation in further strengthening the Japan-US alliance and our endeavor together toward achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Kishida told reporters just before departing Japan for his five-country tour.
His sit-down with Biden is the final face-to-face in a week of talks with fellow Group of Seven leaders that focused largely on his efforts to increase Japan's defense spending and urge leaders to improve cooperation.
With Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he cemented Japan’s first defense agreement with a European nation, one that allows for the two countries to hold joint military exercises.
Kishida also discussed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron his hopes to improve security cooperation between Japan and their respective nations. Germany was the lone G-7 country not on Kishida's itinerary.
Japan last month announced plans to buy US-made Tomahawks and other long-range cruise missiles that can hit targets in China or North Korea under a more offensive security strategy, while Japan, Britain and Italy unveiled plans to collaborate on a next-generation jet fighter project.
“Just a few years ago, there would have been some discomfort in Washington with a Japan that has this kind of military capability,” said Chris Johnstone, a former National Security Council official in the Biden administration who is now the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Those days are gone.”
Biden administration officials have praised Japan for stepping up in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Japan was quick to join the US and other Western allies in mounting aggressive sanctions on Moscow, and Japanese automakers Mazda, Toyota and Nissan announced their withdrawal from Russia.
The Biden administration officials have been pleasantly surprised by Japan's intensified effort to reconsider its security.
A senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss negotiations with the Japanese, noted that historically negotiations involving US force posture in Okinawa have been “unbelievably fraught, incredibly challenging and difficult” and often took years to complete. But, the official said, negotiations before this week’s meetings were completed with striking speed.
The official said Biden is expected to raise the case of Lt. Ridge Alkonis, a US Navy officer deployed to Japan who was jailed after pleading guilty last year to the negligent driving deaths of two Japanese citizens in May 2021.
Alkonis’ family says he suddenly fell unconscious behind the wheel during a family trip on Mt. Fuji. He veered into parked cars and pedestrians in a parking lot, striking an elderly woman and her son-in-law, both of whom later died.
The Navy officer was sentenced in October to three years in prison, a sentence that the family and US lawmakers have called unduly harsh considering the circumstances. Alkonis also agreed to pay the victims $1.65 million in restitution.
The official added that the Biden administration was working “to find a compassionate resolution that’s consistent with the rule of law.”
Kishida met with Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday before his meeting with Biden to discuss US-Japan space cooperation and other issues.
