Performed Reminder of Japan’s Concern on U.S. Behavior

In the backdrop of annual General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi had a meeting with the President of the United States Donald Trump in the U.N. Headquarters on September 22nd. For Takaichi, the meeting was to remind Trump of Japan before he would have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It is unclear whether Trump told Takaichi that he would not make any excessive compromise to Xi on Taiwan issue. 

In the last meeting at the White House in March, Takaichi approved Trump by saying that he would be the only person to bring peace and prosperity in the world. This time, Trump praised Takaichi saying that she had done a tremendous job and was going to go down in history. Takaichi attracted Trump by escorting to their discussion closed to the press, with which Trump had trouble over purging some of them from the White House.

 

As same as in March, the meeting between Takaichi and Trump was set just before the U.S.-China summit. In the meeting with Xi in May, Trump recognized U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan as a “negotiating chip” toward China. Takaichi has been known as one of the pro-Taiwan lawmakers in Japan. Her focus for the meeting with Trump was not let him make concession to Xi too much on this issue.

 

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Takaichi and Trump “exchanged views on issues related to China including economic security and concurred that Japan and the U.S. would coordinate closely.” But it is still unclear what Takaichi asked, proposed or recommended on U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and how Trump replied to it. One thing clear was that the meeting lasted only 35 minutes during their schedule of business.

 

The news organizations of Japan closely watched how Takaichi would deal with the issue of U.S. sanction on the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is presided by a Japanese judge, Tomoko Akane. Japanese people like Japan at the top of the world. They are excited when a Japanese athlete gets gold a medal in Olympic games or a Japanese scientist receives Nobel Prize. They expected Takaichi to say something to Trump on U.S. sanction on the ICC.

 

In her press conference after the meeting with Trump, Takaichi explained that she made a frank exchange with Trump on the issue of the ICC, based on the standpoint of Japan that it kept on supporting the ICC to implement rule of law in the world. But she did not refer to what she had said to Trump and Trump had said to her. It is at least obvious that the U.S. has not canceled its sanction on the ICC.

 

For Takaichi, popularity is everything. Takaichi was afraid of decline of approval rate for her, which showed a small rise with reshuffling her cabinet, if she would fail in satisfying her supporters on the ICC issue. It is likely that she performed to have discussed on rule of law with the U.S. president.

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