Japan and the US joined forces Tuesday to criticise China’s “coercion and aggression” in Asia as senior ministers from both countries held their first in-person talks since President Joe Biden took office in January.
Aside from the sharp rhetoric aimed at Beijing, the meeting in Tokyo and a planned stop next in Seoul are as much an effort by the Biden administration to reassure worried allies in Asia after four years of occasionally confrontational dealings with the Trump administration.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, after holding the so-called “two plus two” security talks with Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and their Japanese counterparts — Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi — said democracy and human rights in the region are being challenged and the US will push with its partners for a free and open Indo-Pacific. Blinken said the Biden administration is committed to work with US allies and those in the region as they face challenges from China and its ally North Korea, which is pursuing an illicit nuclear weapons program.
“We will push back if necessary, when China uses coercion or aggression to get its way,” he said.
In a joint statement released after the talks, the ministers also shared strong worry over Beijing’s human rights violations in Xinjiang, “unlawful maritime claims and activities in the South China Sea” and “unilateral action that seeks to change the status quo” over the Japan-controlled East China Sea islands that China also claims. The statement also stressed the importance of “peace and stability” in the Taiwan Strait. On the Biden administration's first Cabinet-level trip abroad, Blinken and Austin also agreed with their Japanese counterparts to cooperate on the pandemic and climate change, as well as the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and the situation in Myanmar after its military coup.
North Korea criticises US-South Korea drills
On Tuesday, just as the two US officials arrived, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister warned the US to “refrain from causing a stink” if it wants to “sleep in peace” for the next four years. Kim Yo Jong’s statement was North Korea’s first comments directed at the Biden administration.
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