The US is urging Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to issue a joint statement of support for Taiwan amid rising Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific when he becomes the first foreign leader to meet President Joe Biden on Friday.
Suga will visit the White House on Friday in a summit that underscores the importance of the US-Japan alliance as part of Biden’s strategy to work with allies to counter Beijing.
The US wants to refer to Taiwan in the statement that the leaders will issue, according to four people familiar with the situation. The last Japanese and US leaders to mention Taiwan in a joint statement were Eisaku Sato and Richard Nixon in 1969.