When Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a historic summit Wednesday at the White House, he came with an important message for U.S. President Joe Biden: Japan is ready to act as America's "global partner" in maintaining the rules-based international order and countering China’s growing assertiveness.
To back this up, Kishida agreed to a number of both defense and economic security tie-ups that take bilateral ties to unprecedented heights as Tokyo doubles down on its partnership with Washington and like-minded nations to shore up deterrence and prepare for a possible Ukraine-type crisis in East Asia.
From revamping the U.S. military’s command in Japan to U.S. ship maintenance and an expanded technological and defense-industrial collaboration, the list of new security initiatives is long — a reflection of what the two allies called the start of a “new era” as bilateral ties evolve from “alliance protection to alliance projection.”