Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in the United States on the 8th (local time) to begin his state visit schedule. On the 10th, he will hold a summit meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.
According to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and others, Prime Minister Kishida and his wife Yuko arrived in the afternoon at Andrews Joint Base in Maryland, near Washington D.C., on a Japanese government chartered plane. This is the first state visit to the U.S. by a Japanese prime minister in nine years, following then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2015. During his visit until the 14th, Prime Minister Kishida plans to upgrade the alliance with the United States and strengthen cooperation in areas such as the economy and security.
First, on the 10th, a summit meeting will be held at the White House with President Biden. In a joint statement to be released after the meeting, the two leaders will reaffirm the bilateral relationship as "global partners." They will also discuss security issues that could strengthen the integrated operation of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. forces stationed in Japan. Cooperation will be enhanced across a wide range of areas including key supply chains such as semiconductors, advanced technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), and efforts to accelerate people-to-people exchanges. After the summit, they will attend an official dinner.
On the 11th, Prime Minister Kishida will deliver a speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on the theme of "U.S.-Japan Leadership and Cooperation for the Future." This will be the first speech by a Japanese prime minister to the U.S. Congress in nine years, since then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in April 2015. Kishida stated, "As the international community faces a historic turning point, I want to deliver a speech that firmly looks toward the future." However, it is known that this speech will not mention reflections on past history or war.
On the same afternoon, a trilateral summit meeting between the United States, Japan, and the Philippines is scheduled with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. At this meeting, agreements such as plans for the three countries to conduct joint naval patrols in the South China Sea to counter China are expected to be announced. Additionally, on the 12th, Kishida will inspect a vehicle battery plant under construction by Toyota Motor Corporation in southern North Carolina. The newspaper explained that this is intended to emphasize Japanese corporate investment in the U.S.
This visit by Prime Minister Kishida is evaluated as having significant meaning for strengthening the U.S. containment network against China and for Japan’s "normalization" (transition to a country capable of waging war). The U.S. is expected to assign Japan a greater role as a frontline check against China through joint development and production of weapons with Japan, and by strengthening command and control linkages between U.S. forces and the Japan Self-Defense Forces. On this day, the defense ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia also confirmed that they are considering including Japan in AUKUS, the trilateral military alliance against China.
Meanwhile, since Japan is a parliamentary system where the prime minister is the "head of government" rather than the "head of state," this visit is technically classified as an "official visit." However, since the schedule includes a summit meeting, a welcome dinner, a congressional speech, and regional visits comparable to a state visit, the media generally refer to it as a "state visit" or a "state-level visit," and the U.S. government defines it as an "official visit including a state dinner."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
