WASHINGTON — As their nations grapple with growing challenges from China, President Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan are meeting on Friday to discuss how to transform Japan into a military power and bolster the alliance between the two nations as the linchpin for maintaining their security interests in Asia.
Mr. Kishida is making his first trip to Washington since his election in October 2021 and one month after his government announced plans to strengthen its military capabilities and significantly increase military spending in the face of China’s rising power and repeated missile tests by North Korea.
Besides military issues, Mr. Biden, Mr. Kishida and their aides are expected to discuss the close economic ties between the two nations and the challenges in maintaining secure global supply chains. The security issues tied to commerce include technology trade with China, the world’s second-largest economy, and sanctions against Russia for its war on Ukraine.
Mr. Biden has made the bolstering of alliances across Europe and Asia a cornerstone of his foreign policy, in contrast to the “America First” direction of his predecessor, Donald J. Trump. Mr. Biden sees the alliances as critical in the face of greater aggression by China and Russia, the main superpower rivals of the United States, and views with growing urgency global issues like the coronavirus pandemic, a food crisis, climate change and nuclear proliferation.
Mr. Biden has also stressed the importance of supporting democracies against internal and external threats, and he and his aides count Japan among the most important democratic governments in Asia.
The summit on Friday follows a meeting on Wednesday between Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and their counterparts, Yoshimasa Hayashi and Yasukazu Hamada of Japan.
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U.S. and Japanese officials said on Wednesday that the two nations would expand their military cooperation, including by improving Japan’s missile strike abilities and making the U.S. Marine unit in that country more flexible for potential combat.
The changes come as both countries perceive greater threatening behavior from China, North Korea and Russia, which have decades-long partnerships.
Under the new U.S. deployment arrangement in Japan, those who are serving in Okinawa as part of the 12th Marine Regiment, an artillery unit, will transform into a more mobile unit: the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment. The new configuration will allow them to more easily fan out to other islands along the coast when needed, U.S. officials said.