TOKYO — A few days after taking office… Japan’s new leader China faces a series of successive foreign policy tests, with its meeting with US President Donald Trump in Tokyo, between two summits in the Asian region in Malaysia and South Korea.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaishi, with limited experience in international affairs, will have to deal with Trump’s demands and unpredictability and warn China of its strong support for Trump. Military buildup and its right-wing views on Japan’s invasion of China before and during World War II.
She arrives in Malaysia on Saturday to hold meetings with… Southeast Asian leadersHe will then return to Japan to meet with Trump before heading to South Korea to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit at the weekend.
In her first press conference as Prime Minister, she described her agenda as “full” of diplomatic events and said it would be a valuable opportunity to meet other regional leaders.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping will also attend the summit in South Korea, where Talks with Trump It was planned, but a one-on-one meeting with Takaishi would be a surprise.
Neither Xi nor Chinese Premier Li Qiang have publicly congratulated Takaishi since she became prime minister on Tuesday. They offered immediate congratulations to her predecessor, Shigeru Ishibawhich has taken more moderate positions on China.
America has long been Japan’s most important ally and protector, but as with NATO and other allies, Trump has called on Japan to contribute more to its defense. for him Customs tariffs on imports It also dealt a blow to the country’s economy.
Takaishi I pledged Friday To accelerate a plan to increase defense spending to 2% of Japan’s gross domestic product, a measure of the size of the economy. She added that the goal will be reached in March instead of 2027.
“In the region surrounding Japan, military activities and other actions from our neighbors China, North Korea and Russia raise grave concerns,” she said in a policy speech to Parliament.
Trump may be more focused in both Japan and South Korea on this matter And demanding more investment In the United States, especially for factories that would create jobs for American workers.
Takaishi could benefit from being a political disciple of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who appears to have gained Trump’s trust during the US president’s first term.
She shares Abe’s views on the history of the war, perhaps more strongly than he did. Before becoming prime minister, she was among the conservative lawmakers who regularly offered condolences to Japan’s war dead Yasukuni Shrine In Tokyo.
These visits anger both China and South Korea because the honor includes former leaders who were convicted of war crimes for their actions during World War II.
Takaishi missed a visit during the Autumn Festival earlier this month, when it seemed likely that she would become Japan’s leader.
Her primary mission now is political stability, and experts believe she will refrain from expressing her views on the war and stay away from the shrine to avoid any escalation that might shake her weak and untested coalition government.
“It would be very foolish of her, especially in her first year, to provoke a major diplomatic incident because she wants to go to Yasukuni Shrine,” said Gerald Curtis, an expert on Japanese politics at Columbia University.
He said her right-wing supporters know she is a member of their team, so she does not need to visit the shrine to prove it to them.
A Chinese expert on Japanese affairs agrees with him.
Lian Deguy of Shanghai International Studies University noted that Abe has maintained his ties with China even as he deepens military cooperation with the United States and unsuccessfully pushes for a review of Japan’s pacifist constitution, another hot-button issue for China.
He added: “If it can learn from Abe, bilateral relations will not deteriorate.” “Abe rarely visited Yasukuni Shrine as prime minister and this is the basis of bilateral relations.”
Avoiding the shrine may prevent relations from deteriorating, but experts said it was difficult to see them improving given fundamental differences over regional security.
Takaishi described the US-Japan alliance as a “cornerstone” of her country’s diplomacy and security policy.
She added in her press conference: “Japan, from the perspective of the United States, is an indispensable partner for America’s strategy towards China or its strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.”
China, meanwhile, has less incentive to improve relations than it did previously, said Rintaro Nishimura, a senior fellow at the Asia Group.
“Looking at the situation now, their focus is on dealing with Trump directly, and I don’t think Japan is their first priority at this point,” he said.
Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing, expects that the military confrontation between Japan and China will intensify during the Takaishi era, and said that disagreements over the history of the war may increase.
The new Prime Minister said she wants to maintain stable relations with China, but another Chinese expert advised not to think too much about these comments.
“These statements are all pre-set dialects of the Japanese Foreign Ministry,” said Liu Jiangyong, a specialist in East Asian studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
He said it was difficult to envision a meeting with a Chinese leader, given Takaishi’s previous comments about history and the push to expand the military, though some kind of courteous greeting during a regional summit was likely.
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Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Associated Press researcher Yu Ping in Beijing contributed to this report.