US Foreign Policy and Biden-Kishida Meeting: Navigating the Future

TFD – Dive into the strategic dialogue between the US and Japan as President Biden meets with Prime Minister Kishida, shaping the future of US foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region. Discover key insights and developments at TheFoxDaily.

In the face of a militarily and economically resurgent China, President Joe Biden is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio for a state visit on Wednesday, which includes an important discussion at the Oval Office. This shows Biden’s commitment to strengthening key ties in the Indo-Pacific region.

Senior administration officials anticipate that as part of the bilateral meeting between Biden and Kishida, around 70 issues across a wide range of crucial areas would be announced.

According to the officials, these include a commitment to reorganize the US force structure in Japan to enhance the integration of Japanese and US forces, form a “military industrial council” to assess opportunities for joint defense weapon production between the two nations to foster better cooperation, and work on integrating anti-missile defense between the US, Australia, and Japan.

All of the statements are a part of a significant update to the military alliance between the two countries, but some of them will take time to implement. For example, the US force structure reform will take several months for both nations to complete, according to a senior official.

In addition, the leaders are anticipated to discuss space cooperation at a time when Japan has expressed interest in sending its first astronaut to the moon and will outline strategies for fostering stronger interpersonal relations in light of the recent decline in student exchanges between the two nations.

The officials mentioned a few of these, including a collaborative artificial intelligence research project between Carnegie Mellon University and Keio University in Tokyo and another AI-related collaboration between the University of Washington, Washington State, and Tsukuba University in Japan. In addition, a scholarship will be established to help US high school students study in Japan and vice versa.

The president of Japan is opposed to Japan’s plans to buy US Steel, which has caused a recent economic divide between the two nations even as the US and Japan are strengthening their collaboration in a number of areas. Despite the criticism, officials stated that they think the relationship is more significant than a single business transaction and that they don’t anticipate Biden bringing up the subject explicitly.

Later this week, the US, Japan, and the Philippines will hold their first-ever leaders’ summit. Biden will be trying to strengthen ties with allies and partners in the Pacific as the area deals with North Korea’s nuclear provocations and China’s aggression.

According to a senior administration official, every item on the agenda is a part of a coordinated military, diplomatic, and strategic effort to try and “flip the script” and resist Chinese efforts to isolate American allies like the Philippines and Japan.

“This person stated that the goal of adopting a multilateral, lattice-like strategic architecture is to reverse the narrative and isolate China.”

Japan has been at the forefront of Biden’s efforts to forge alliances in the Indo-Pacific because of Kishida, who has considerably changed the nation’s security posture in recent years and has continued to back Ukraine despite Russia’s invasion of that country. In order to strengthen its capacity to counterattack, Kishida purchased American Tomahawk missiles and pledged to raise defense spending by 2% of GDP by 2037.

The president and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, according to a senior administration official, gave the transition team the assignment to pursue alliances and partnerships where they saw “extraordinary potential if only the United States turned back to it and reembraced it” prior to taking office.

“We developed a plan that aimed to assist numerous partners and allies in recognizing aspects of themselves and their own goals in our Indo-Pacific strategy,” the person stated.

Diplomacy in cherry blossoms

During their meeting, the leaders will undoubtedly unveil a long list of defense and diplomatic accords, but senior administration officials also aimed to emphasize a more symbolic outcome. Kishida intends to make an announcement during his visit about Japan’s promise to supply fresh cherry tree saplings to replace some of the landmark trees that will be cut down later this year near the Tidal Basin in Washington.

In order to create room for taller seawalls surrounding the basin, the National Park Service has announced that about 150 cherry trees will be felled later this spring. Early in the 20th century, Japan gave Washington its first donation of trees.

The initial Japanese donation of cherry trees was hailed by a top Biden administration official as one of the most significant diplomatic gifts in US history, surpassed only by the French gift of the Statue of Liberty.

According to an official, “you’ll find that these kinds of initiatives—while they may not seem as important as new agreements on military command structures or joint co-production on the military side—are extremely important to our peoples.”

Even as Biden praised the US partnership with Japan on Wednesday, officials acknowledged that American friends were worried about what would happen to US foreign policy if Donald Trump were to retake the White House.

“I think we all recognize that there is anxiety in capitals, uncertainty, about what the nature of the future of US policy will look like,” the official said. “If we continue to pursue internationalism and engage in the kinds of bipartisan foreign policy initiatives that have fueled the post-World War II and post-Cold War eras.” There are worries and inquiries there.