Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sat down with President Trump in New York. Ahead of the US-China summit set for the 24th, the meeting's focus was conveying Japan's view of Chinese military activity around the Taiwan Strait and of economic security.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi held a summit with President Trump in New York on the 22nd, local time. She had arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport by government aircraft on the night of the 21st, delivered Japan's address to the UN General Assembly's general debate on the 22nd and held the bilateral summit the same day.
광고 문의 · 300×250Officials around the prime minister's office described the purpose of the meeting as showing the world the strength of the alliance. The intent was to convey directly to the American president Japan's concerns over Chinese military activity around the Taiwan Strait and over economic security, ahead of the US-China summit scheduled for the 24th.
The meeting came amid a dense General Assembly schedule. The foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan had already met in the same city and issued a joint statement; coordination then continued at leader level.
The Sequence of Aligning Before a Summit
Allies aligning positions before a major meeting is ordinary diplomatic sequence. But the sequence itself is read as a signal. That Japan's prime minister met the same counterpart two days before the US and Chinese leaders sit down is, in itself, a message.
Japan is deeply entangled with China in semiconductor materials, equipment and rare-earth processing, while also taking part in the American export-control system. That is why the phrase economic security is handled heavily in Tokyo. Beijing has criticized such measures as an overextension of the security concept and maintains that its own export controls are a legitimate exercise of rights under international norms.
What Korea's Chinese Community Sees
Sentences exchanged in New York arrive, with a lag, at shop counters in Incheon and Seoul. Trade restrictions and friction translate into exchange rates and procurement costs, and touch student remittances and holiday airfares. For Chinese families with relatives and school records across Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan, such meetings are not foreign affairs.
This paper places reporting from Tokyo, Washington, Beijing and Taipei side by side on the same event, because one side's explanation alone does not account for the reality at the counter.
