TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told U.S. President Joe Biden during phone talks Wednesday that he wants to strengthen the countries’ alliance, but they did not discuss his wish to revise a long-standing bilateral agreement on U.S. military operations.
Ishiba and Biden agreed on the need for summit-level talks with South Korea and other nations, the prime minister told reporters.
The Japanese and U.S. leaders also shared their “serious concerns” about the possibility of an all-out war in the Middle East following Iran’s missile strikes on Israel and strongly condemned the escalation, according to the Japanese government.
“I told President Biden that I intend to follow the path that he and (former) Prime Minister Kishida set in significantly expanding the bilateral alliance and further strengthen it,” Ishiba said, a day after he was elected premier, replacing Fumio Kishida.
Ishiba, who has described the security situation facing the country as “the most severe since World War II,” said he explained the need to boost Japan’s defenses, “both in the size (of defense spending) and substance.”
Ishiba has taken the view that the bilateral status of forces agreement, which serves as the basis for how U.S. troops stationed in Japan operate, should be revised, potentially a high hurdle.
He has floated the idea of stationing Self-Defense Forces troops in the United States for training, while jointly managing U.S. bases in Japan. The bulk of such facilities are concentrated in Okinawa, seen as strategically important for its proximity to Taiwan as well as the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, administered by Japan but claimed by China.
During their phone talks, the two leaders also discussed the importance of multilateral cooperation involving South Korea, another key U.S. ally in Asia, and other partners.
“We want to strengthen the network of like-minded nations,” Ishiba said, touching on the Quad framework involving Australia, India, Japan and the United States as well as three-way cooperation with the Philippines.
Japan and the United States share the vision of making the Indo-Pacific “free and open,” a region that includes the East and South China seas, where China’s assertiveness has raised security concerns.
Ishiba has underlined the need for the region to have a collective security framework akin to NATO, given that Russia invaded Ukraine, a non-NATO member. An attack on a NATO member is treated as an attack on its other members.
Japan PM tells Biden of need for strong ties with US in phone talks
