SEOUL — President Joe Biden on Friday begins his first trip to Asia since he took office amid some of his lowest domestic approval numbers as he looks to make strides in countering China’s saber-rattling and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Biden is scheduled to spend two days in South Korea, where he’ll showcase new economic investments in the U.S. by some of the country’s top companies, including Hyundai’s plans to open a plant in Georgia.

He then plans to fly to Tokyo for a meeting of an alliance among the U.S., Australia, Japan and India that’s aimed at checking China’s increasing military might.

The war in Ukraine looms over Biden’s four-day trip to the other side of the globe, with leaders planning to press Indian President Narendra Modi to take a firm position against Russia’s invasion and the U.S. hoping the global response to Moscow’s aggression might deter China from moving on Taiwan.

“The message we’re trying to send on this trip is a message of an affirmative vision of what the world can look like if the democracies and open societies of the world stand together,” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters Wednesday. “We think that message will be heard everywhere. We think it will be heard in Beijing.”

Also potentially overshadowing Biden’s trip is growing concern within the administration that North Korea could conduct a nuclear test or launch an intercontinental ballistic missile to coincide with his visit. U.S. officials have said intelligence shows that either or both is possible. If either happens, it would be the first time North Korea has taken such a step in several years.

Sullivan told reporters before Biden’s departure that the administration was prepared “to make both short- and longer-term adjustments to our military posture as necessary” to try to deter Pyongyang from further provocation and defend U.S. allies in the region.

At the same time, the U.S. is keeping open the possibility for diplomatic dialogue with North Korea while noting that there has been scant contact, and it could extend an offer to assist with a Covid outbreak in the isolated country, including by providing vaccines.

Biden, notably, isn’t scheduled to visit the demilitarized zone that divides North Korea and South Korea. The White House didn’t explain why. White House officials said the focus of the trip is economic initiatives, pointing out that Biden did visit the demilitarized zone as vice president.

Biden does plan to visit with U.S. troops in the region.

While he is in Seoul, Biden is scheduled to meet with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was recently elected, and attend a state dinner. He’s expected to visit a Samsung factory as part of his emphasis on efforts in South Korea’s technology and manufacturing industries to take more of their operations — and jobs — to the U.S.

Biden also plans to announce a new economic initiative, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, which the White House says is aimed at expanding trade, fortifying supply chains and tackling climate change.

The Asia tour kicks off by highlighting new foreign investments in the U.S. economy as the administration looks to stress an economic message when the overwhelming majority of Americans — 75 percent in the latest NBC News poll — believe the country is on the wrong track.

Only 33 percent of all respondents and just 20 percent of independents in that poll said they approved of Biden’s handling of the economy.

A significant part of the visit to Tokyo is expected to be a meeting with the leaders of the so-called Quad, an alliance of the U.S., India, Australia and Japan. In addition to meeting with his host, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Biden is also expected to hold one-on-one meetings with Modi and the winner of Saturday’s Australian election.

Biden officials have worked to grow the Quad into a more substantive economic and military force that, coupled with new economic initiatives, is designed to send a message to China.

Michael Green, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, told reporters before Biden’s trip that “the subtext of the Quad is that this is a powerful alignment of maritime democracies concerned about security and stability and the balance of power as China asserts itself.”

Biden has repeatedly argued that the 21st century will be defined by the contest between democracies like the U.S. and autocracies like Russia and China.

His trip to Asia is designed to illustrate that, just as he has intensively worked this year to maintain unity among European allies in the face of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, he can build a similar network of partners in the Eastern Hemisphere as a buffer against China — particularly any considerations of exercising its expanding military might.

China, even more than Russia, has been central to Biden’s foreign policy approach over the past decade, since he traveled to Beijing as vice president to hold the first extensive meetings with China’s future president, Xi Jinping.

And as the administration has considered the joint actions against Russia that have dominated its foreign policy agenda this year, it has done so mindful that China would be watching every move.

Carol E. Lee
Carol E. Lee is an NBC News correspondent.

Mike Memoli
Mike Memoli is an NBC News correspondent.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-makes-first-presidential-trip-asia-war-europe-looms-large-rcna29603

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The speculation came to light in a parliamentary meeting last week when the Defense Ministry did not answer directly a question from an opposition lawmaker seeking to know whether what has until recently been called “enemy base attack capability” targets would include China’s CMC.

The meeting came after the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on April 27 suggested Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government acquire a counterstrike capability to attack enemy bases and “command and control functions.”

The LDP has yet to clearly state what such functions entail but defense experts say the proposed capability could cover command centers issuing orders for missile attacks and would expand Japan’s options for retaliating against mobile- and submarine-launched missiles.

In a meeting last Wednesday of the Lower House committee on foreign affairs, Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Keiji Kokuta asked if the government envisages the CMC and the country’s five theater commands as among the targets of a counterstrike capability.

The five commands are in charge of defending the eastern, southern, western, northern and central regions of China. The Eastern Theater Command, for example, oversees Taiwan, Japan and the East China Sea.

LDP lawmaker Masahisa Sato, director of the party’s Foreign Affairs Division, and other security experts say China has about 1,900 short- and medium-range missiles that can reach Japan.

Kokuta cited a document the Japanese Ground Staff Office used in an internal meeting in September 2017. The document shows an organizational chart of the Chinese military and says there is a command system between the CMC and the five theater commands.

Kokuta said the LDP proposal does not exclude the CMC and the five commands as possible targets, and asked, “Wouldn’t this lead to a full-scale war with China?”

But Makoto Oniki, state minister of defense, did not directly address the question.

“Attacking the base of a guided missile would constitutionally fall under the scope of self-defense if (the government) perceives there were no other means (to defend Japan),” he said in response.

Oniki said he is not in a position to comment on the LDP proposal, which also includes a call to double Japan’s defense budget to 2% or more of gross domestic product over five years.

The LDP wants the proposal to be reflected when the government revises the National Security Strategy and other documents by the end of the year.

Speaking at Wednesday’s meeting, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said the government is considering adopting a counterstrike capability “without ruling out any possible option so as to fully prepare ourselves for safeguarding people’s lives.”

LDP lawmakers hope developing a counterstrike capability will serve as a deterrent against possible attacks on Japan, especially in light of China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region and North Korea’s nuclear and missile development.

Critics, however, say such a measure would represent a major shift from Japan’s exclusively self-defense-oriented security posture under its war-renouncing Constitution.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/05/15/national/politics-diplomacy/chinas-top-military-body-may-find-crosshairs-japan-counterstrike-capability/

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The region is part of northern Japan that was devastated by a deadly 9.0 quake and tsunami 11 years ago that also caused nuclear plant meltdowns.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no longer a tsunami threat though the Japan Meteorological Agency kept its low risk advisory in place. NHK national television said tsunami waves of 8 inches already reached shore in one area.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant where the cooling systems failed after the 2011 disaster, said workers found no abnormalities at the site, which was in the process of being decommissioned.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters that there were also no abnormalities at two other nuclear power plants in the area.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake hit at 11:36 p.m. at a depth of 36 miles below the sea.

Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force said it dispatched fighter jets from the Hyakuri base in Ibaraki prefecture, just south of Fukushima, for information gathering and damage assessment.

NHK said there were reports of fire, damage to buildings and falling rocks in Iitate town in Fukushima. There was no word on any casualties.

More than 2 million homes were without electricity in the Tokyo region serviced by TEPCO due to the quake, the utility said on its website. The quake shook large parts of eastern Japan, including Tokyo, where buildings swayed violently.

East Japan Railway Co. said most of its train services were suspended for safety checks.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the government was assessing the extent of damage and promised to do its utmost for rescue and relief operations.

“Please first take action to save your life,” Kishida tweeted.

Matsuno said there were a number of emergency calls and local authorities were scrambling to assess damage.

“We are doing our utmost in rescue operations and putting people’s lives first,” he said.

He urged residents in the affected areas to use extra caution for possible major aftershocks for about a week.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/16/1086939902/japan-earthquake-fukushima

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