TOKYO: Japan\u2019s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will visit Vietnam and the Philippines next week, officials said Wednesday, as Tokyo seeks to ramp up regional ties after Donald Trump\u2019s tariff onslaught.
\nThe April 27-30 trip follows a Southeast Asia tour by Chinese President Xi Jinping, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to the United States as leaders confront Trump\u2019s levies.
\n\u201cStrengthening relations with Southeast Asia, a global growth center and strategic location, is one of the top priorities of Japanese diplomacy,\u201d Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
\n\u201cRelations with Vietnam and the Philippines are of particular importance, with their populations exceeding 100 million and as they continue their strong economic growth.\u201d
\nXi last week urged Vietnam to join forces with China to \u201coppose unilateral bullying and uphold the stability of the global free trade system.\u201d
\nHours later, Trump said Xi\u2019s visit to Hanoi had been aiming to \u201cscrew\u201d the United States.
\nDespite being a key US ally and the biggest investor into the United States, Japan has been pinched by steep tariffs imposed by Trump on imports of cars, steel and aluminum.
\nSome Japanese companies, reportedly including gaming giant Nintendo, are increasingly shifting production to Vietnam and its neighbor Cambodia, partly because of the fallout from the last US-China trade war.
\nAn official statement from Manila said that Ishiba would visit the Philippines on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
\nA meeting between Ishiba and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos \u201cwill aim to deepen and improve economic and development cooperation, political and defense engagements, and people-to-people exchanges,\u201d it said.
\nJapan is a key security partner of the Philippines, and an agreement that would allow them to deploy troops on each other\u2019s territory is awaiting ratification by Tokyo.
\nThe two countries in January vowed to strengthen cooperation to counter China\u2019s actions in the disputed South China Sea \u2013 with Japan pledging to enhance the Philippines\u2019 \u201cmaritime security\u201d and \u201cmaritime safety capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOKYO: Japan\u2019s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will visit Vietnam and the Philippines next week, officials said Wednesday, as Tokyo seeks to ramp up regional ties after Donald Trump\u2019s tariff onslaught. The April 27-30 trip follows a Southeast Asia tour by Chinese President Xi Jinping, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80029,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80013\/revisions\/80029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}