The State Department issued a press release yesterday announcing that the foreign and defense ministers of Japan will be in Washington for a 2+2 security consultative meeting with Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Jan. 11, two days before Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida himself will be meeting President Joe Biden at the White House.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters at the Foreign Press Center yesterday that no one should consider Japan’s new national security policy any kind of threat. He claimed that Tokyo’s intention is to advance “a free and open Indo-Pacific,” a “vision” that the United States also shares. “What Japan has announced in its new national security doctrine should not be perceived as a threat to anyone,” Price said, reported Kyodo News. “This is just an effort on the part of our Japanese allies to position themselves to most effectively advance that vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific and to be positioned vis-à-vis those who have an alternative vision to our own vision.”
The White House announced on Jan. 3 that Kishida will be coming to Washington on Jan. 13, with the U.S.-Japan alliance at the top of their agenda.
