Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi spoke with Donald Trump on Tuesday, hours after the US president held talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a time of rising tensions over Taiwan between east Asia’s two biggest economies.
Takaichi, who won the leadership of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic party last month, said Trump had requested the call and had “provided an explanation of the recent state of US-China relations”.
“We then exchanged a wide range of views on strengthening the Japan-US alliance, as well as on the situation and various challenges facing the Indo-Pacific region,” Takaichi told reporters in Tokyo after the call.
“President Trump told me that I am a very close friend of his and that I should feel free to call him at any time. As these are diplomatic exchanges, I will refrain from going into further detail about the contents of the discussion,” she added without explicitly mentioning Taiwan.
The calls come as China and Japan are embroiled in a war of words that diplomats and analysts say is the most severe diplomatic eruption for years between the two countries.
It was sparked after Takaichi this month referred in parliament to a hypothetical situation in which a Chinese attack on Taiwan could be interpreted as an “existential threat” to Japan, that would allow Japan’s Self-Defense Forces to respond militarily.
China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, has denounced her comments and since signalled it will block imports of Japanese seafood, cancel joint events and has warned against its citizens travelling to Japan.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the call with the Japanese leader. But it came on the same day in Washington that Trump spoke to Xi.
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said Xi and Trump spoke about a range of issues, including Taiwan, in their first conversation since meeting in South Korea on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Xinhua said Xi impressed on Trump the importance of “Taiwan’s return to China”. However, Trump made no mention of Taiwan in comments on Truth Social that he posted several hours after speaking to the Chinese leader.
Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, said the call was focused on trade in the wake of the one-year truce that Trump and Xi reached in the US-China trade war when they met in Busan on October 30.
While George Glass, Washington’s ambassador in Tokyo, has expressed US support for Japan in the face of the Chinese criticism over Takaichi’s comments about Taiwan, Trump has so far not made any public comment.
