Recently, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited the United States. Both Japan and the United States have been hyping up this trip. The U.S. announced the news months ago, claiming that the visit would demonstrate the importance of the alliance between the two countries. So we saw that the Japanese media used "state guest treatment" to describe the visit. #军史观察团#
However, the actual situation is that when Kishida arrived in the United States, only the US Ambassador to Japan Emanuel was the representative to receive the plane. And such an arrangement obviously has nothing to do with state-guest treatment.
As for why the United States did not dare to receive Fumio Kishida with a high profile, we may find the answer from the reaction in Japan.
According to the global network, as soon as Kishida arrived in the United States, the Japanese people took to the streets to rally and protest. They oppose the strengthening of Japan's alliance with the United States and refuse to allow Japan to embark on the road of no return to war again. This is not the first event of a similar nature, and it is unlikely that it will be the last.
The U.S. military has previously released rumors that medium-range missiles will soon be deployed in the Indo-Pacific. If nothing else, Japan will most likely be the preferred location for deployment. In addition to the United States' expanding military deployment in the Indo-Pacific region, Japan itself is also constantly unbundling its military, from lifting the ban on the export of next-generation fighters to continuously increasing its defense budget. It can be said that the various movements of the Kishida government show that the country's current military expansion is preparing for war, which makes the Japanese people very worried.
We speculate that the cold reception received by Fumio Kishida during his visit to the United States cannot be ruled out as a deliberate act by the United States. As for the goal, it should be to avoid further irritating the Japanese people, who hope to downplay the impact of Fumio Kishida's visit to the United States through such an arrangement.
Of course, even so, Kishida's visit to the United States was not easy. On the day of his departure, the Japanese media gave him a problem, suggesting that Japan export scallops to the United States to reduce the impact of China's ban on Japanese aquatic products. According to the data, due to the impact of the ban, Japan's scallop exports fell sharply by nearly 4% last year. So, in order to solve the problem of the mountain of scallops, Japan can only find a way to sell it to its allies.
The problem is that China is the largest export market for Japanese scallops, and even if the United States agrees to accept Japanese scallops, it will be far from making up for China's shortfall. In addition, other countries are not as good as China in terms of processing technology, which is equivalent to another obstacle to the export of Japanese scallops. What's more, long before China announced its ban on Japan last year, the United States had drastically reduced its imports of aquatic products from Japan. This is a sign that the U.S. is unlikely to accept Japanese scallops.
Based on such a complex background, the Japanese media suddenly released a news on the 10th, saying that the China-Japan-South Korea summit may be held at the end of May this year. According to Fumio Kishida's visit to the United States, he will hold a meeting with Biden on the same day. Another important trilateral summit between the United States, Japan and the Philippines was held the next day. In other words, the timing of the Japanese media's release was just before the highlight of Kishida's visit to the United States. Therefore, we speculate that this move by the Japanese media cannot be ruled out to allow Fumio Kishida to have more chips in the next talks.
However, consider that Japan itself is subordinate to the U.S.-Japan alliance. Most of what the United States was able to promise Japan was something innocuous about it. In contrast, it is obviously more feasible for the Japanese media to use the US-Japan-South Korea summit to resolve the embarrassment of Kishida's visit to the United States and receive a cold reception.
Moreover, in a sense, there is a lack of conditions for a summit between China, Japan and South Korea. First, both Japan and South Korea are deeply influenced by the United States in their China policy. If Japan and South Korea do not make independent decisions, it will be difficult to achieve substantive results even if the summit is held. Because once the United States puts pressure, Japan and South Korea may overturn the consensus or cooperation agreement reached with China at any time. Second, there are still many obstacles in China-Japan and China-ROK relations that need to be resolved by Japan and South Korea. Especially in Sino-Japanese relations, Fumio Kishida's visit to the United States this time is expected to further intervene in the South China Sea issue at the US-Japan-Philippines summit. Before Kishida's departure, Japan also held joint exercises with the United States, Australia and the Philippines in the South China Sea.
In addition, China and Japan held expert talks on the issue of nuclear sewage only at the end of last month. In less than two weeks, the Japanese media wanted to export aquatic products to the United States and other allies in response to China's ban. This shows that Japan has no sincerity in solving the problem, and they will not stop the pollution plan. Otherwise, Japan can strengthen dialogue with China in order to seek the possibility of resuming the export of aquatic products to China.
In general, the China-Japan-South Korea summit released by the Japanese media actually has little practical significance. In response to the strengthening of the military alliance between the United States and Japan, China has long advised Japan to draw lessons from history. If the Kishida government persists in cooperating with the United States in containing China, we will take measures to resolutely fight back.