Category: Global Updates

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden announced a “new era” for their countries’ alliance during a state visit to Washington by the Japanese leader on Wednesday, with the pair heralding a historic upgrade of defense ties as they look to beef up Tokyo’s role in countering China’s growing assertiveness.

The state visit — which includes all the fanfare, from a military honor guard in full regalia and a swanky black tie banquet — was the culmination of years of deepening cooperation under Biden and Kishida that has taken the U.S.-Japan relationship to new heights.

“Over the last three years, the partnership between Japan and the United States has been transformed into a truly global partnership,” Biden said ahead of talks with Kishida at the White House.

The two leaders pledged to push ties even closer, unveiling plans to revamp the U.S. military’s command and control frameworks in Japanfollowing a similar move by the Self-Defense Forces, “to enable seamless integration of operations and capabilities and allow for greater interoperability and planning between U.S. and Japanese forces.”

The move comes as concerns rise over China’s military moves around democratic Taiwan and nuclear-armed North Korea’s increasingly belligerent saber-rattling.

Talks on those changes would be fleshed out at so-called two-plus-two talks between the allies’ defense chiefs and top diplomats, Kishida said. A meeting is expected to take place in the coming months.

In total, Biden and Kishida unveiled a spate of around 70 agreements — in what one senior White House official said was “the largest set of substantial, significant deliverables that we've seen” to date.

The agreements include a deal to allow Japanese companies to handle major repair work for warships, while the allies also "plan to explore the possibility of conducting maintenance and repair on engines of Japan-based U.S. Air Force aircraft, including fourth generation fighters," the leaders said in a joint statement.

The two sides also said they would create a new consultative body "to leverage our respective industrial bases to meet the demand for critical capabilities and maintain readiness over the long term." The Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment (DICAS) forum, co-led by the Pentagon and Japanese Defense Ministry, would use this "to identify priority areas for partnering U.S. and Japanese industry" on defense and military equipment.

Biden and Kishida also unveiled plans to upgrade defense communications networks and to network air defense capabilities between the U.S., Australia and Japan to counter air and missile threats.

As competition with Russia and China in space heats up, the two leaders also announced a goal of making a Japanese national the first non-American to land on the moon as part of the NASA-led Artemis mission.

Biden characterized the bolstered ties as “the most significant upgrade in our alliance since it was first established,” with one senior White House official calling the developments “unimaginable just a few years ago and frankly, unimaginable with a leader other than Fumio Kishida.”

Kishida, who is the first Japanese leader to make a state visit to the U.S. since Shinzo Abe in 2015, will also follow his late predecessor indelivering an address to a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday.

The visit highlighted the importance that Biden has put on building up alliances in the face of China, but especially its alliance with Japan — which has undergone a dramatic shift in defense policy overseen by Kishida.

This shift has included a commitment to increase defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027 and most recently an easing of strict defense export guidelines to enable the transfer of a future sixth-generation fighter aircraft and finished defense products, including lethal ones, manufactured in Japan under foreign license to the patent-holding countries.

At a news conference following about two hours of talks, Biden touted his push to “rebuild the muscle” of the United States’ alliances, which he called “America’s greatest asset.”

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Bank of Japan policymakers at their meeting in January discussed proactively its monetary policy management after the end of the central bank’s negative interest rate policy, minutes of the meeting showed Monday.

The BOJ’s Policy Board decided last week to end the policy of applying an interest rate of minus 0.1% on part of commercial financial institutions’ current account deposits at the central bank, marking its first interest rate hike in about 17 years.

The board also decided to scrap the yield curve control regime, which called for guiding the yields on 10-year Japanese government bonds to around zero.

As to the BOJ’s new short-term interest rate target after the termination of the negative rate policy, one Policy Board member said at the Jan. 22-23 meeting that the bank would encourage the unsecured overnight call rate, the key short-term interbank lending rate, to move “in a range of zero to 0.1%,” the minutes showed.

Some members said that the BOJ would continue JGB purchases regardless of whether the yield curve control framework is terminated, indicating that a system to prevent a spike in long-term interest rates should be in place after the abolition of the yield curve control, according to the minutes.

At last week’s meeting, the Policy Board decided to nudge the unsecured overnight call rate to around zero to 0.1% and continue buying massive amounts of JGBs for the time being, while scrapping the yield curve control framework, including the application of the negative interest rate on some current account deposits. The yield curve control was the pillar of the BOJ’s ultraeasy monetary policy.

At the Jan. 22-23 meeting, Policy Board members agreed on the importance of the BOJ organizing its “basic thinking” on points it should take into account when changing its policy and on its policy conduct thereafter, in light of the growing likelihood of the central bank’s 2% consumer inflation target being met, the minutes showed.

Many members agreed that accommodative financial conditions would “highly likely” be maintained after the BOJ takes policy actions such as ending the negative rate policy, according to the minutes.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has issued a statement on Friday’s deadly attack in Moscow, in which at least 113 people died.

In the statement, entitled “Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on the Terrorist Attack at Moscow Crocus Concert Hall”, the Ministry states:

“We are shocked by the deaths of dozens of people and hundreds injured in a terrorist attack at the Moscow Crocus Concert Hall on 22 March 2024.

The Royal Government of Cambodia condemns the vicious attack in the strongest possible terms.

We extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims and the Government of the Russian Federation, and wish a speedy and full recovery to those injured.

Cambodia reiterates that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of motivation. We stand with the Russian government and people during this time of grief.”

Donald Trump appears to be scrambling for funds to pay a $464m (£365m) fraud fine. Could the stock market ride to his rescue? 

Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, is poised to become a publicly listed company, after a majority of shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp voted on Friday to acquire it. 

Mr Trump is due to have a stake of at least 58% in the merged company, worth nearly $3bn at Digital World's current share prices. 

It's an astonishing potential windfall for Mr Trump in exchange for a business whose own auditor warned last year it was at risk of failure. 

Never mind the many red flags associated with the deal, including unresolved lawsuits from former business partners. There's also an $18m settlement that Digital World agreed to pay last year to resolve fraud charges over how the merger plan came together.