Japan Eyes Trump Meeting Before Xi Summit on China — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Takaichi Sanae is seeking a bilateral meeting with Trump during her UN General Assembly visit, but as of September 17 "nothing has been decided," even though both leaders address the General Debate on September 22.
- Trump and Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet in Washington on September 24, with Japan watching closely because of its alliance with the US and geographic proximity to China.
- Japan's defense white paper, released last month, warns that China "has been intensifying its activities in the region surrounding Japan [and] extending beyond the so-called first island chain to the second island chain."
- Japan scrambled fighters in June after Chinese and Russian aircraft were detected near the Miyako Strait by Okinawa, while Beijing continues coast guard patrols around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
- The US and Japan joined other states in an August joint statement criticizing China's unannounced submarine-based long-range ballistic missile launch, while the US hosted RIMPAC exercises in Hawai'i in July.
- The Iran conflict has pulled US resources from the Indo-Pacific: the USS George Washington was reassigned to the Middle East, and a DoD inspector general report found the war is depleting US munitions stockpiles.
- The Yomiuri Shimbun asked in a September editorial: "With the decline in the U.S. military's presence in Asia, aren't China and North Korea taking advantage of this situation?"
Why it matters: The USS George Washington's reassignment to the Middle East and DoD-flagged munitions depletion signal concrete US military resource shifts away from the Indo-Pacific at the exact moment Japan's defense white paper documents expanding Chinese military activity — creating real friction when Takaichi arrives in New York and Trump heads into the Xi summit.
Ask SkimNews
