Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed Friday to continue working together closely on issues related to China, including Taiwan, as Japan’s top diplomat visited Washington for meetings with senior American officials.

According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the pair “stressed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and urged a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues.”

The visit came just hours before voters in Taiwan headed to the polls in a highly anticipated election that will see the democratic island pick a new president and legislators. The poll is widely expected to be condemned by China — especially if Democratic People’s Party candidate and current Vice President Lai Ching-te is elected president.

Lai has been labeled by Beijing as a “worker for Taiwan independence and destroyer of peace across the Taiwan Strait.”

China claims the self-ruled island as a renegade province that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. This claim has triggered concerns of a possible invasion, despite U.S. President Joe Biden hinting that the United States would help Taiwan in the event of a conflict.

Japan, for its part, sees any war over the island as an existential threat, and has beefed up defense spending and its dispatch of Self-Defense Force personnel and gear to its far-flung southwestern islands near Taiwan while bolstering its alliance with the U.S. military.

In a veiled reference to potential contingencies involving Taiwan and other regional hot spots, the Foreign Ministry also said the two sides had agreed to “promote efforts to further strengthen the deterrence and response capabilities” of the alliance.

Kamikawa, in remarks ahead of their talks, signaled that Tokyo’s alliance with Washington was crucial to facing down challenges in Asia and elsewhere.

“The world is now at a turning point, and the role of the Japan-U.S. alliance in addressing the challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region — and the world as a whole — is greater than ever,” Kamikawa said.

Blinken echoed the sentiment, calling the alliance “truly the cornerstone of peace, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”

“What we’ve seen in recent years, but especially over the last couple of years, is an alliance that has reached new heights where we are working together not only on a bilateral basis, not only on a regional basis, but genuinely on a global basis,” Blinken said, adding that the partnership is “built on shared values.”

“We’re together in good times. We’re together in challenging times,” he added.

During the roughly one-hour talks, the two top diplomats also agreed to continue working toward an official state visit to the U.S. by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida “early this year.”

While the exact timing of the visit remains unclear, media reports have said Kishida could make the trip in March.

Blinken’s meeting with Kamikawa came the same day he held talks with top Chinese foreign policy official Liu Jianchao, as the two rival nations continue to try and rebuild relations that have plummeted to fresh lows in recent years.

Liu, who heads the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department, is a career diplomat who has held several key roles and is widely seen as a possible future foreign minister.

Blinken said in a statement that the two sides had held "a constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including areas of potential cooperation and areas of difference."

The top U.S. diplomat "reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea," the statement added, while noting that "both sides recognized the importance of continuing to maintain open channels of communication."

In an event earlier this week hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Liu offered clear words on Beijing’s position on Taiwan.

“For China, the Taiwan question is at the very core of the core interests,” he said. “It’s the red line that mustn't be crossed.”