{"id":1588,"date":"2026-03-23T08:05:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T08:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/?p=1588"},"modified":"2026-03-24T08:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T08:08:14","slug":"takaichi-weathers-trump-but-china-challenges-linger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/2026\/03\/23\/takaichi-weathers-trump-but-china-challenges-linger\/","title":{"rendered":"Takaichi weathers Trump, but China challenges linger"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US President Donald Trump and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, March 19, 2026. Takaichi warned she\u0092s facing an \u0093extremely difficult\u0094 meeting with Donald Trump, after the US president criticized Japan for rebuffing his demand for warships to help secure the Strait of Hormuz. Photographer: Aaron Schwartz\/CNP\/Bloomberg<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has largely been praised for\u00a0her handling of U.S. President Donald Trump\u00a0during her first visit to Washington as Japanese leader. But a raft of challenges remain \u2014 namely improving Japan\u2019s relationship with China and convincing Trump not to make a deal with Beijing that leaves Tokyo in the lurch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japanese officials faced a double punch in the runup to the summit, with the Feb. 28 eruption of war against Iran and then with the sudden postponement of Trump\u2019s meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the end of this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Takaichi administration had earlier hoped her meeting would offer a chance to bend Trump\u2019s ear before the Xi summit, with the prime minister aiming to press him on the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance and a need to push back against China\u2019s coercive measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Takaichi is unlikely to be the last leader to speak to Trump before the Xi meeting, which the U.S. president said could be held in about a month and a half, but she did manage to secure what appeared to be an endorsement of her approach to the Sino-Japanese relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the opening of his meeting with Takaichi, Trump described Japan-China ties as \u201cedgy,\u201d saying he would \u201cbe speaking Japan’s praises when I’m in China with President Xi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s statement that he will speak positively about Japan at any meeting with Xi could be interpreted as a \u201cmodestly positive signal,\u201d said Ryo Sahashi, a professor of international politics at the University of Tokyo \u2014 though he cautioned against overestimating its impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStill, the fact that U.S.-Japan relations are broadly stable and characterized by a degree of trust is itself an asset for Japan,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, Japan now appears to occupy a relatively privileged position among U.S. allies, one arguably stronger than many European partners, especially considering Trump\u2019s criticism of NATO before, during and after his summit with Takaichi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not simply due to Takaichi\u2019s personal diplomacy, but also reflects Trump\u2019s long-standing, somewhat distinct perception of Japan, which Tokyo has learned to read and leverage effectively,\u201d Sahashi said, adding that while this may not directly resolve the China-Japan dispute, \u201cit could provide Tokyo with some diplomatic leverage as U.S.-China relations evolve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping react as they hold a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025. REUTERS\/Evelyn Hockstein TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY\/File Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But that evolving relationship is precisely what worries Tokyo, which fears that Trump could parlay his desire for a wide-ranging deal with China into a \u201cG2\u201d grouping, short for a \u201cGroup of Two,\u201d an idea broached and discarded in the early 2000s that, from Japan\u2019s perspective, could be interpreted as Washington and Beijing dividing the Pacific Ocean between east and west, effectively creating spheres of influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some experts believe that Trump\u2019s remarks could be read in two distinct ways, including that they could provide short-term reassurance to Tokyo by indicating that Japan\u2019s position will not be ignored in U.S.\u2013China engagements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, a more skeptical interpretation is that this praise functions as a negotiating instrument within a broader U.S.\u2013China bargaining framework,\u201d said Misato Matsuoka, an expert on U.S.-Japan relations and associate professor at Teikyo University. \u201cBy highlighting Japan\u2019s cooperation, Trump implicitly increases pressure on China to offer concessions of its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn this reading,\u201d she added, \u201cJapan is less an autonomous strategic partner than a variable within a larger transactional exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further evidence that the U.S. and Japan are not necessarily on the same page when it comes to China was seen in a fact sheet released by the White House<\/a> that touched on the most contentious issue in both countries\u2019 relationships with China: Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe two leaders committed to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as an indispensable element of regional security and global prosperity, supported the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues through dialogue, and opposed any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo, including by force or coercion,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u0081@\u0082P\u0082X\u0093\u00fa\u0081A\u0083z\u0083\u008f\u0083C\u0083g\u0083n\u0083E\u0083X\u0082\u00c5\u0081A\u008bL\u0094O\u008eB\u0089e\u0082\u00c9\u0097\u00d5\u0082\u00de\u0083g\u0083\u0089\u0083\u0093\u0083v\u0095\u00c4\u0091\u00e5\u0093\u009d\u0097\u00cc\u0081i\u008d\u00b6\u0081j\u0082\u00c6\u008d\u0082\u008es\u0091\u0081\u0095c\u008e\u00f1\u0091\u008a\u0081i\u0083z\u0083\u008f\u0083C\u0083g\u0083n\u0083E\u0083X\u0092\u00f1\u008b\u009f\u0081j<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The fact sheet did not mention China by name, though it mentioned the U.S. and Japan would \u201ccoordinate in third countries to address challenges posed by strategic competitors,\u201d an apparent reference to the allies\u2019 participation in \u201cminilateral\u201d groupings with countries such as the Philippines, Australia and others in response to Beijing\u2019s moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Japanese readout\u00a0of the summit released by the Foreign Ministry did not mention Taiwan, saying only that the two leaders had \u201cexchanged views on issues concerning China and reaffirmed that Japan and the U.S. would continue to coordinate closely,\u201d while explicitly noting cooperation with \u201clike-minded countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked at a regular news conference Monday about the discrepancy, Japan\u2019s top government spokesperson, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara, declined to comment on diplomatic discussions, but emphasized that the fact sheet \u201cwas issued solely by the U.S. side,\u201d adding that the two leaders had \u201cconfirmed their commitment to close cooperation\u201d on China issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was not clear whether the omission by the Japanese side was an attempt to tone down language over the contentious issue of Taiwan, which China claims as its own and has vowed to bring the democratic island under its control, by force if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japan\u2019s ties with China have plunged to their lowest point in decades following\u00a0Takaichi\u2019s remarks\u00a0in parliament on Nov. 7 that the Self-Defense Forces could be deployed under the right to collective self-defense in \u201cworst-case\u201d scenarios, such as a Chinese naval blockade of Taiwan, which the prime minister said would constitute a \u201csurvival-threatening situation\u201d for Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China lashed out after the remarks, turning to a toolbox of informal economically coercive tools to punish Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While U.S. officials have expressed concern about the dispute, Trump has refrained from directly expressing his support for Takaichi, apparently out of concern that doing so might disrupt plans to reach a broad trade deal with Xi.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has largely been praised for\u00a0her handling of U.S. President Donald Trump\u00a0during her first visit to Washington as Japanese leader. But a raft of challenges remain \u2014 namely improving Japan\u2019s relationship with China and convincing Trump not to make a deal with Beijing that leaves Tokyo in the lurch. Japanese officials faced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1593,"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1588\/revisions\/1593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indopacera.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}