Obama hosts Japan's prime minister at White House
US President Barack Obama is hosting Japan’s prime minister at the White House as their countries engage in a power game to keep a rising China in check.
Obama will hold talks with Shinzo Abe at the Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region as well as a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement — a 12-nation deal to liberalize commerce around the Pacific rim.
On Monday afternoon, the US president played guide while taking his guest on an unannounced tour of the Lincoln Memorial on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, DC.
During their White House meeting, Obama and Abe will try to build political momentum to lessen resistance to the Pacific trade deal in both Japan and the United States.
Obama has undertaken an effort to “pivot” US economic and military resources to Asia and has argued that without the trade agreement, China will step into the breach.
"If we don't write the rules, China will write the rules out in that region," Obama said earlier in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We will be shut out — American businesses, American agriculture. That will mean a loss of US jobs."
Obama and Abe will also talk about ways to boost the Japan-US military alliance, with China again looming in the background.
The Japanese and American foreign and defense ministers also held meetings in New York, where they revised defense guidelines focused on bolstering Japan’s military capability amid growing tensions with China in disputed waters in the East and South China Sea.
The new rules, which build on Japan's missile defense, mine sweeping and ship inspections, are the first revisions of the US-Japan defense cooperation in 18 years.
In addition to Washington, Abe plans to visit Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles during his visit.
HRJ/HRJ
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