U.S. President Joe Biden is bringing together Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on Thursday as the three nations use their first-ever trilateral summit to try to show they are in lockstep about countering China’s military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.
Biden on Wednesday reflected on the fact that Japan, once a fierce U.S. enemy, has become one of the closest American partners and an indispensable ally in a shared push for peace, security and prosperity in the Pacific and beyond. Administration officials have acknowledged growing concern among all three countries about provocative Chinese action in the Pacific, which will be a large focus of the leaders’ talks. The White House sees the summit as countering China’s attempts at “intimidation” and sending a message that China is “the outlier in the neighbourhood,” according to an administration official.
Biden, in a wide-ranging phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, raised concerns about China’s operations in the South China Sea, including efforts to impede the Philippines, which the U.S. is treaty-obligated to defend, from resupplying its forces on the Second Thomas Shoal. “Countries outside the region, led by the U.S., have been cobbling together small groupings in the South China Sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Wednesday. “They have been stoking confrontation in the name of co-operation, flexing muscles in the name of peace, and sowing chaos in the name of order. This is no doubt an act of hegemonism.”