Visits from Japanese and Filipino leaders highlight Biden’s efforts to blunt China’s aggression

President Joe Biden will host the first-ever leaders’ summit between the US, Japan and the Philippines this week, the latest attempt to draw Pacific allies and partners closer as the region grapples with China’s aggression and nuclear provocations from North Korea.

It comes as the president has sought to keep his eye on the strategy laid out early in the administration even as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza rose to the forefront of global attention.

Biden’s week also includes an official visit for Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, reinforcing his commitment to cultivating partnerships in the Indo-Pacific in the face of China’s rising economic and military power.

“Since day one, President Biden has remained personally focused on reaffirming and reinvigorating our alliances around the world, and nowhere has this strategy paid off more than in the Indo-Pacific,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN in a statement. “We firmly believe that investing in alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific benefits the American people, makes us safer, and more competitive on the world stage.”

Starting Tuesday evening, the president and first lady Dr. Jill Biden welcome Kishida and his wife Kishida Yuko to the White House. The official visit kicks off in earnest on Wednesday with the full pomp and circumstance of a South Lawn arrival ceremony, bilateral meeting, joint news conference and lavish state dinner.

It will mark the fifth official state visit of the Biden White House and the fourth dedicated to a key Indo-Pacific ally with three previous visits honoring Australia, India and South Korea.

The two men are expected to announce a major update to their military alliance and lay out greater defense industrial cooperation, a senior administration official said. They’re expected to hail new steps on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity work and deepening semiconductor production.

The leaders are also expected to detail space collaboration at a time when Japan has signaled interest in landing its first astronaut on the moon and to lay out ways to increase people-to-people ties amid lagging student exchanges between the two countries in recent years.

But even as the US and Japan are bolstering their cooperation across a range of sectors, the two countries have seen a recent difference on an economic front with the president opposing Japan’s efforts to purchase US Steel, an issue that could arise in discussions.

The historic leaders summit on Thursday between Biden, Kishida and Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos is expected to produce announcements relating to infrastructure, energy security, digital connectivity and maritime security. The three leaders will hold private discussions on the South China Sea, where the Philippines is facing “extraordinary pressure,” the senior official said, as Manila grapples with Beijing’s aggression in the contested waters.

“With the official visit of Prime Minister Kishida, the visit of President Marcos, and the historic trilateral leaders’ summit, we will show that our key alliances have reached heights that have never before been achieved and are ones that we believe we can sustain in the years ahead,” Sullivan said.

Forging ties on military, technology, infrastructure

The shared goal of keeping autocratic power at bay – while protecting their prowess in advanced technology – is expected to be a major theme of the visit.

Kishida, who is also set to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday, has already shown keen interest in the critical importance of the semiconductor industry, meeting with executives on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in November and coordinating export controls with Washington and other allies.

“There’s a loose collaboration on the supply chains,” said John Neuffer, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association. “But there’s really, in the last couple years, been a stepped-up effort on export controls.”

Biden is expected to encourage Kishida to place more restrictions on the export of high-tech chips to thwart China’s military and economic capabilities. But US officials acknowledge Kishida’s preference has been to do so only in lockstep with the Netherlands, South Korea and Taiwan, to avoid direct confrontation with Beijing.

Meanwhile, Japan has recently loosened restrictions on the export of military technology – paving the way for deeper collaboration with like-minded allies.

“Both countries over the last two years have gone through dramatic changes in their policies. And this is literally the end of one kind of era,” Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, told CNN in an interview. The next three decades, he said, will be defined by “alliance protection.”

At Thursday’s summit of the three leaders, the White House is expected to bolster the Filipino military’s capability with a new infrastructure investment similar to what the US announced in India in the leadup to the G20. Senior administration officials tell CNN the leaders will announce the development of a new rail and shipping corridor between Philippines’s Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base, a move that’s meant to send a clear message to Beijing.

In the days leading up to the summit, the US, Japan and Philippines - along with Australia - conducted maritime military exercises near Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), after Philippine vessels had alleged “harassment” by Chinese ships in the South China Sea.

Crafting an alliance-forward strategy

The meetings come as the region is grappling with the uncertainty of China’s aggressive posture toward Taiwan and the South China Sea along with nuclear provocations from North Korea and its burgeoning relationship with Russia – concerns that have drawn regional allies closer to the US.

Japan has been at the center of Biden’s alliance building in the Indo-Pacific as officials have seen a willing partner in Kishida, who has significantly shifted the country’s defense posture in recent years and provided ongoing support to Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Kishida has committed to increasing defense spending by 2% of GDP by 2037 and acquired American Tomahawk missiles to increase its counterstrike capabilities.

Before entering the White House, the president and Sullivan tasked the transition team to tap into alliances and partnerships where they saw “extraordinary potential if only the United States turned back to it and reembraced it,” one senior administration official said.

“What we did was put together a strategy that was designed to help a wide range of allies and partners see pieces of themselves and their own objectives in our Indo-pacific strategy,” the official said.

One directive from Sullivan to his team was to think creatively about new groupings to push that Indo-Pacific strategy forward. During that transition period, Sullivan and senior advisers zeroed-in on plans to elevate the Quad partnership between the US, Japan, Australia and India to the leader level and in the opening weeks of the administration ramped up efforts to make that a reality. The first virtual meeting with the four leaders took place in March 2021 with subsequent in-person summits in the years that followed.

The president also had his eye on strengthening the trilateral relationship between the US, Japan and South Korea, an effort the official described as a “slower boil” following decades of mistrust and tension between Tokyo and Seoul.

To move that along, the president hosted Japan’s then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and South Korea’s then-President Moon Jae-in for his very first foreign leader meetings at the White House and visited the countries back-to-back in 2022. In their separate meetings, the president made clear the importance of the trilateral relationship and offered assurances the US stood ready to help the two countries work on their relationship, officials said.

Under the leadership of Kishida and President Yoon Suk Yeol, Japan and South Korea took significant steps to ease their tensions in the years that followed, culminating with an historic Camp David summit where Biden praised the ushering in of a “new era of cooperation” between the three countries.

At the same time, the administration has forged ahead with a new security partnership with the United Kingdom and Australia known as AUKUS. Ahead of Kishida’s visit to the White House, defense chiefs with the AUKUS countries announced they would consider working with Japan on “advanced capabilities” projects, signaling a potential strengthening of the alliance.

Biden and his team also have sought to draw in smaller regional neighbors concerned about China’s military and economic aggression. He’s deepened military ties with the Philippines under Marcos after the previous leader Rodrigo Duterte distanced the country from Washington and moved to align with Beijing more closely. Sullivan in part laid the groundwork for this week’s historic summit when he traveled to Japan for the first meeting between national security advisers for the US, Japan and the Philippines in June.

Vietnam last year elevated its ties with the US to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” putting it among the country’s highest tier of partners, including China. The White House has ramped up engagement with Pacific Island nations and sought to boost economic ties with regional partners through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, including efforts to make supply chains more resilient, promote clean energy, combat corruption, and trade, though a formal trade deal has proved elusive.

Biden and his team have taken steps to try to institutionalize the defense, security and economic advancements made with allies to ensure they are a “feature of the system and not just a bright idea of this particular team,” the official said.

It comes as partners are keenly aware leadership in Washington could change next year as Biden is engaged in a close contest against his predecessor former President Donald Trump, who could reshape US policy toward the region once again.

“Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming presidential election in the United States, because of this more complicated international situation, the Japan-U.S. alliance grows in importance even more,” Kishida said in an interview with PBS last week. “And I believe this is a notion shared as a common recognition within the U.S., going beyond party lines, in a bipartisan way.”

But Biden continues looking for other ways to deepen the alliances, including the potential for further meetings with the Quad countries and with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, as his first term is winding down and with an eye on the future.

“The fundamental question that was at issue in our Indo Pacific strategy and is at issue in the region is what the shape and character of the international order is going to look like a few decades hence,” the official said. “It is arguably the clearest example of the president and his top foreign policy leadership, having a clear vision for a foreign policy that would be good for everyday Americans and executing on it in a seamless and a coordinated fashion in ways that yield results.”

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