Japan has announced that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will travel to Washington next month for his first face-to-face summit with President Joe Biden after he and his entourage complete their COVID-19 vaccinations, Al Jazeera reports.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said Suga is expected to be the first foreign leader Biden meets with since he took office in January. The trip is expected to take place in the first half of April.
Kato said the two leaders are expected to discuss pandemic measures, climate change, and other regional concerns, including North Korea.
The meeting is also likely to touch on China’s escalating assertiveness in the East and South China seas, which have become a growing concern for Tokyo and Washington.
“We hope further to strengthen our bilateral relations including the Japan-US alliance, and to confirm our close cooperation toward achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Kato said. “It would be a good opportunity for us to show the rest of the world the close unity of the Japan-US alliance and the US commitment to the Indo-Pacific region.”
Suga has had online talks with Biden and on Friday was set to join a virtual summit of the leaders of Australia, India, Japan, and the US, a group known as “the Quad” that shares concerns about China’s growing economic and military might.
Friday’s summit is the first time the leaders of the four countries will meet together.
The Biden administration has said confronting China’s growing economic and military influence is a top foreign policy priority.
