White House Pushing Japan To Issue A Joint Statement Of Support For Taiwan Amid Rising Chinese Aggression

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is expected to be the first foreign leader to hold a face-to-face meeting with President Biden.PHOTOS: EPA-EFE, AFP  

Financial Times: US pushes Japan to back Taiwan at Biden-Suga summit  

Washington seeks joint statement of support as it courts allies to counter China  

The US is urging Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga to issue a joint statement of support for Taiwan amid rising Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region when he becomes the first foreign leader to meet President Joe Biden on Friday. 

Suga will visit the White House for a summit that will underscore the importance of the US-Japan alliance to Biden’s strategy of working with allies to counter Beijing. 

The US wants to refer to Taiwan in the statement that the leaders will issue, according to four people familiar with the situation. The last Japanese and US leaders to mention Taiwan in a joint statement were Eisaku Sato and Richard Nixon in 1969. 

Taiwan has become an increasingly dangerous flashpoint as China dramatically expands its military activity around the country. Beijing sent 25 fighter jets, bombers and other aircraft into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone on Monday, the biggest Chinese incursion in history. 

A senior US official last month told the Financial Times that the Biden administration was worried China was flirting with seizing control of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its sovereign territory. 

 The White House wants to reinforce the message that Antony Blinken, secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, defence secretary, and their Japanese counterparts, Toshimitsu Motegi and Nobuo Kishi, sent to China recently. 

In a joint statement made in Tokyo, the four officials stressed the “importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”.  

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Update: US Pushing Japan's PM Suga To Issue Joint Taiwan Statement With Biden (Zero Hedge).  

WNU Editor: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will be meeting President Biden this Friday in Washington D.C. .... The Summit That Can’t Fail (Foreign Policy). He will also be the first foreign leader to meet President Biden.

As for this joint statement. Japan is reluctant to issue it. The Olympics are only a few months away, and Japan does nto want to aggravate ties with China right now.