Japan’s new leader faces diplomatic gauntlet with Trump, China and regional summits

TOKYO– Just days after taking office, Japan’s new leader faces a series of back-to-back foreign policy tests, with a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Tokyo between Asia summits in Malaysia and South Korea.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, with limited experience in international affairs, will have to manage Trump’s demands and unpredictability, as well as China’s distrust of his strong support for military buildup and his right-wing views on Japan’s invasion of China before and during World War II.

She arrives in Malaysia on Saturday for meetings with Southeast Asian leaders, then returns to Japan to meet with Trump before heading to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit at the end of the week.

At her first news conference as prime minister, she described her schedule as “packed” with diplomatic events and said it would be a valuable opportunity to meet other regional leaders.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will also attend the summit in South Korea, where talks with Trump are planned, but a one-on-one meeting with Takaichi would be a surprise.

Neither Xi nor Chinese Premier Li Qiang have publicly congratulated Takaichi since she became prime minister on Tuesday. They immediately praised his predecessor, Shigeru Ishiba, who held more moderate positions on China.

America has long been Japan’s most important ally and protector, but like NATO and other allies, Trump has demanded that Japan contribute more to its defense. Its tariffs on imports have also dealt a major blow to the country’s economy.

Takaichi pledged Friday to accelerate a plan to increase defense spending to 2% of Japan’s GDP, a measure of the size of the economy. The target would be reached in March instead of 2027, she said.

“In the region around Japan, there are serious concerns about the military and other actions of our neighbors China, North Korea and Russia,” she said in a political speech to Parliament.

In Japan and South Korea, Trump could focus more on his demands for increased investment in the United States, particularly in factories that would create jobs for American workers.

Takaichi could benefit from being a political protégé of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who appeared to have earned Trump’s trust during the U.S. president’s first term.

She shares Abe’s view of the history of the war, perhaps even more strongly than he does. Before becoming prime minister, she was among conservative lawmakers who regularly paid respects to Japan’s war dead at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.

The visits are angering China and South Korea because they include former leaders convicted of war crimes for their actions during World War II.

Takaichi notably missed a visit during the fall festival earlier this month, when it seemed likely she would become Japan’s leader.

Her overriding mission now is political stability, and experts believe she will refrain from expressing her views on the war and stay away from sanctuary to avoid any flare-ups that could shake her weak and untested coalition government.

“It would be really stupid of her, especially in her first year, to create a major diplomatic incident because she wants to go to the Yasukuni Shrine,” said Gerald Curtis, an expert on Japanese politics at Columbia University.

He said her right-wing supporters knew she was on their team so she didn’t need to go to the shrine to prove it to them.

A Chinese expert from Japan agrees.

Lian Degui of Shanghai International Studies University noted that Abe maintained ties with China while deepening military cooperation with the United States and unsuccessfully pushing to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution, another hot-button issue for China.

“If she can learn from Abe, bilateral relations will not deteriorate,” he said. “Abe rarely visited the Yasukuni Shrine as prime minister and it is the foundation of bilateral relations.”

Avoiding sanctuary could prevent ties from deteriorating, but experts say it is difficult to see them improving given fundamental differences over regional security.

Takaichi described the U.S.-Japan alliance as the “cornerstone” of his country’s diplomacy and security policy.

“From the American point of view, Japan is an indispensable partner for the American strategy towards China or its Indo-Pacific strategy,” she added during her press conference.

Meanwhile, China has less incentive to improve relations than it once did, said Rintaro Nishimura, senior partner at The Asia Group.

“Given the current situation, they are focused on direct relations with Trump, and I don’t think Japan is their first priority at this point,” he said.

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing, expects the military confrontation between Japan and China to intensify under Takaichi, and said disputes over the history of the war could intensify.

The new prime minister has said she wants to maintain stable ties with China, but another China expert advised against placing much emphasis on the comments.

“These remarks are all in the pre-established tone of the Japanese Foreign Ministry,” said Liu Jiangyong, a specialist in East Asian studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

He said a meeting with a Chinese leader was difficult to imagine, given Takaichi’s past remarks on history and his desire to expand the military, although some sort of courtesy greeting at a regional summit is possible.

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Moritsugu reported from Beijing. Yu Bing, an Associated Press researcher in Beijing, contributed to this report.