• US President praises Japan PM's efforts to improve ties with South Korea

HIROSHIMA: Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio and US President Joe Biden on Thursday agreed on continued bilateral cooperation in dealing with issues regarding China, reiterating their resolve to maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait under Chinese pressure.

The two leaders met in Hiroshima as they tried to smooth the way for the three-day summit of the Group of Seven major democracies in the western Japan city from Friday.

Biden praised Kishida’s efforts to improve Japan’s ties with South Korea as a move that will contribute to greater regional stability and prosperity.

At the outset of Thursday’s meeting, Kishida told Biden that he aims to “show the G-7’s unwavering will to protect international order based on the rule of law.”

Biden said that Japan and the United States “stand up for the shared values” including supporting people in Ukraine and “holding Russia accountable for its brutal aggression.”

The president said the world faces one of the most complex security environments in recent history, adding that he is “proud that the United States and Japan are facing it together.”

Kishida and Biden discussed ways to further strengthen defense cooperation, based on Japan’s three key security documents revised last December and its decision to bolster its defenses.

On Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the two agreed to continue imposing tough sanctions against Moscow and providing support to Ukraine, in close cooperation with G-7 allies.

They also confirmed the importance of reaching out to the so-called Global South–emerging market and developing nations that do not choose between the West and authoritarian Russia and China.

The possibility had emerged earlier that Biden might have to attend the G-7 summit online depending on the course of ongoing discussions on the US debt limit. But he made the visit as planned, being the second sitting US president to visit the city once devastated by an atomic bomb dropped by his own country in the closing days of World War II.

The White House has said that Biden will visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum with other G-7 leaders on Friday and participate in a wreath-laying event for the victims of the U.S. atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945.

JIJI Press