Tokyo, April 2, (dpa/GNA) – Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will hold face-to-face talks with US President Joe Biden in Washington on April 16, Tokyo said on Friday.
Suga will become the first foreign leader to meet in person with the new US president, who took office in January, at the White House, Japanese government spokesman Katsunobu Kato told a news conference.
It shows “the strong ties of the Japan-US alliance and America’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific region,” Kato said.
The two leaders are expected to discuss climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, issues related to China and North Korea and cooperation toward a free and open Indo-Pacific region, he said.
The meeting was originally planned in the first half of April and it has been pushed back to April 16, Kato said.
In mid-March, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin made their first overseas trip to Japan to meet their Japanese counterparts.
Blinken and Austin held the so-called two-plus-two meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi, sharing concerns about China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
The four ministers reiterated their objections to China’s “unlawful maritime claims and activities” in the South China Sea and shared their concerns about the human rights situation in Hong Kong and China’s western region of Xinjiang, which is home to the Uighur ethnic minority.
The two countries also expressed concerns about a new Chinese law which allows Beijing’s coastguard to use weapons on foreign ships.
Chinese coastguard vessels frequently approach a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, a source of diplomatic tension between Beijing and Tokyo.
The Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands are also claimed by China and Taiwan, where they are called Diaoyu and Tiaoyutai respectively.
On his way back to Washington, Blinken met China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Alaska for the first time. Their meeting turned into a verbal spat over a number of issues, including ones related to Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
GNA