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Alyssa Chen

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said she and Donald Trump had reaffirmed their collaboration on issues relating to Beijing in a phone call on Saturday.
The call followed the US president’s nostalgic invocation of the World War II alliance with China during his summit with Xi Jinping, remarks that sent shock waves through Tokyo.
Trump made the references as he welcomed the Chinese president to the White House on Thursday for his first state visit to Washington in over a decade.
In a social media post on Saturday, Takaichi said Trump provided detailed explanations regarding the recent US-China summit during the call starting at 9pm Tokyo time. They exchanged views centred on various issues surrounding China, including the economy and security, and confirmed the Japan-US collaboration, she wrote.
Takaichi met Trump in person on Tuesday in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Two exchanges with the US leader within one week “truly demonstrates the strength of the Japan-US alliance”, her post read.


“Japan and the United States have now become the most trusted allied nations, and we confirmed our commitment to jointly contribute to peace and stability in the region and the world.
“In order to elevate our unwavering Japan-US alliance to even greater heights, I will closely collaborate with President Trump,” she pledged.
Both Trump and Xi repeatedly invoked their nations’ wartime alliance against Japan in their remarks in Washington – an unusual historical reference that immediately unsettled Tokyo.
Such bonds were also reflected in statements released by the two countries following Xi’s visit.
“The two leaders recalled that United States and China were allies in World War II and fought side by side to win the war,” both statements said.

However, the White House statement added a paragraph to justify US presence in the region.
“Since World War II, the United States’ forward military presence has preserved a free and open Indo-Pacific, contributing to generations of American prosperity,” it said.
Takaichi said on Friday that Tokyo and Washington were “allies bound by very strong ties” based on mutual trust. But she pointedly declined to comment on the Trump-Xi summit.
To avoid being sidelined completely, Takaichi had rescheduled her address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, moving it up by two days to secure a 35-minute meeting with Trump on Tuesday.
Japanese analysts warned that the wartime nostalgia boded poorly for Japan, though they cautioned against reading too much into the rhetoric.
Chinese observers, meanwhile, argued that the moment should prompt Tokyo to rethink its approach towards Beijing.

Shin Kawashima, professor of international relations at the University of Tokyo, said the main question was why Washington was embracing the wartime framing now.
“Trump’s remarks could easily be interpreted by China as indicating that the US and China are in agreement on issues of historical perception and that the US supports China’s rhetoric condemning the [Takaichi] administration as a form of ‘new militarism’,” Kawashima said.
Hotaka Machida, a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Geoeconomics in Tokyo, said Japan would find Trump’s historical references “surprising and awkward”, but noted that the remarks were made in the context of the US-China relationship.
Still, he cautioned: “Japan needs to be careful about the possibility of the Chinese side taking advantage of the amicable atmosphere presented this time as a propaganda tool.”
Kenichi Doi, senior research fellow at the same institute, called Trump’s description of wartime China as an ally “striking”.
But the bigger question was whether that shared history would be used to cast doubt on present-day Japan. It would be a mistake to assume that Trump had endorsed Beijing’s criticism of Tokyo, he said.


Rintaro Nishimura, a senior associate at The Asia Group strategic advisory firm, said that though worrying, the single statement was unlikely to weaken the US-Japan alliance.
Tokyo was also less concerned because Takaichi coordinated with Trump on issues related to China ahead of the Xi-Trump summit, he added.
“[But] it does not bode well for Tokyo that Washington and Beijing are both emphasising the fact that the two countries were wartime allies,” Nishimura said.
Beijing and Tokyo have remained largely out of official contact since November, when Takaichi suggested that a blockade of Taiwan would be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan.
Official relations went into a tailspin but Japanese business and legislative delegations have made sustained efforts to visit Beijing to gauge Chinese thinking.
Another business delegation, led by former Japanese foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya, will go to China on Sunday in the latest attempt to bridge the diplomatic impasse.
Nishimura expected Tokyo to “stay the course” when engaging with Beijing, using legislative and commercial dialogue to tease out potential openings for government-level talks, with an end goal of securing a Takaichi-Xi meeting at the Apec summit in Shenzhen in November.
“Japan will be looking to see if there are any signs that Washington is ready to compromise regional security for a deal, perhaps economic, with Beijing.”




Meanwhile, Tokyo’s discomfort is seen as an inevitable consequence of stabilising US-China ties, with analysts saying the warm tone from the summit should prompt Tokyo to reassess its own approach to Beijing.
Kawashima noted that Japan-China relations would “grow more tenuous” if US-China ministerial engagement deepened and might prompt Tokyo to conclude that it was better to improve relations with China to some extent.
Wang Guangtao, deputy director of the Centre for Japanese Studies at Fudan University, said Japan’s anxiety was an inevitable result of further stabilisation between Beijing and Washington.
“The sheer fact that Chinese and American leaders can have such frequent interactions this year should serve as a prompt for Tokyo to change its perceptions towards China and rethink its posture,” Wang said.
Zhang Yun, professor of international relations at Nanjing University, said Tokyo harboured deep concern about the prospect of another 1972 “Nixon shock”, when the US normalised ties with China without consulting its closest East Asian ally.
Takaichi’s push to meet Trump ahead of his talks with Xi reflected this anxiety, he said.
“Compounded by Trump’s transactional approach towards its traditional alliances and tariff actions, these dynamics are fuelling deep-seated anxieties in Tokyo over Washington’s reliability, leaving Japan’s position adrift,” Zhang said.
According to Cho Sung-min, associate professor of international relations at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, the memory of US-China military cooperation against Japan has long been a Chinese talking point.
“Trump’s reference to America’s past partnership with China against Japan, a US ally in the present, suggests how far he was willing to go to maintain a cordial relationship with Xi,” Cho said.


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Trump, Takaichi reaffirm US-Japan ties in phone call after Xi state visit

US President Donald Trump's description of wartime China as an ally is “striking”, according to a Japanese analyst. Photo: AFP

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US President Donald Trump meets Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office on March 19. Photo: Reuters 

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi waves before leaving Tokyo’s Haneda Airport aboard a government plane on September 21, on her way to the UN General Assembly in New York. Photo: Kyodo

US President Donald Trump walks on the red carpet after greeting Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at Joint Base Andrews, in the US state of Maryland on September 23. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

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Chinese President Xi Jinping raises a toast at the state dinner in the East Room of the White House on September 24. Photo: EPA-EFE 

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and US President Donald Trump meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

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They exchanged views on various issues surrounding China, Japanese leader’s post says, after World War II references spark concern in Tokyo


They exchanged views on various issues surrounding China, Japanese leader’s post says, after World War II references spark concern in Tokyo.


Trump, Takaichi reaffirm US-Japan ties in phone call after Xi state visit

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}They exchanged views on various issues surrounding China, Japanese leader’s post says, after World War II references spark concern in Tokyo

They exchanged views on various issues surrounding China, Japanese leader’s post says, after World War II references spark concern in Tokyo