Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was able to tick many of the boxes on Japan’s wishlist during his virtual summit with U.S. President Joe Biden, but now the hard part begins.
The prime minister will need to buckle down for a busy year to bring that wishlist to fruition, especially if COVID-19 continues to roil his best-laid plans.
Kishida and Biden held an online summit Friday after the spread of the virus’s omicron variant made in-person talks impossible. The talks, initially scheduled for one hour, lasted for 80 minutes, with the two leaders discussing a range of issues and agreeing to “push back” against China’s assertive actions in the region, cooperate to rein in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and to work closely to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine.