TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Tuesday that strengthening his country’s alliance with the United States is key to regional security and expressed his desire to meet the newly elected US president Donald Trump.
This comes amid concerns about China’s increasingly assertive military activity, including violations of Japan’s airspace and territorial waters and joint military exercises with Russia around Japan, and North Korea’s repeated test firings of ballistic missiles as part of its nuclear and rocket development programs.
Ishiba leads a minority government next a significant election loss in October amid voter anger over his party’s financial scandals.
“I hope to hold talks with the newly elected President Trump as early as possible so that we can take the Japan-US alliance to an even higher level,” Ishiba told a press conference on Tuesday to mark the end of this parliamentary session year.
“To further elevate the Japan-US alliance… it is important to share a common position on the situation in Northeast Asia,” Ishiba said.
Ishiba had previously attempted to meet with Trump shortly after his victory in the US presidential race in November. However, the prime minister said he had been told that meetings with world leaders before Trump’s inauguration on January 20 were restricted under US law.
Yet last week, Trump met with Akie Abe, the widow of the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before a dinner, he signaled his willingness to meet the Japanese leader around mid-January, Ishiba said. Abe had close ties to the president-elect.
No specific details have been set, but officials are working on it as Trump hopes to find “an appropriate timing,” Ishiba said.
Domestically, the prime minister faces tough negotiations with the opposition — a major change for his Liberal Democratic Party’s ruling coalition, which has long pushed through its favored legislation by taking advantage of its dominance in parliament, a practice of Abe’s which critics labeled as autocratic. .
Ishiba said on Tuesday that he has done his utmost to listen to the voices of the opposition and reach the broadest possible consensus on political reform legislation and a supplementary budget plan.
Ishiba also promised to accelerate discussions on the possibility of allowing married couples to keep both their properties surnames by changing the current law that requires one surname per household.
The rule has forced the majority of women to take their husbands’ surnames, sparking criticism in Japan and abroad over gender bias.
Most opposition lawmakers and even a powerful business organization now support the change in the surname policy, which has been blocked by LDP conservatives for decades.