TOKYO (HRNW) – US President Joe Biden and Japan’s Fumio Kishida met for talks in the deeply symbolic city of Hiroshima on Thursday, aiming for closer cooperation in the face of an ascendant China and an unpredictable Russia they see as threatening the post-war order.
The two met ahead of a three-day Group of Seven (G7) summit that starts on Friday in Hiroshima, the first city to be levelled by an atomic bomb.
Members of the G7, which also includes Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada, are increasingly concerned by what they see as China’s economically coercive policies and its rapid accumulation of sensitive technology – as well as Russia’s repeated threats over the use of nuclear arms.
But tackling those issues head-on isn’t so easy, officials from G7 member countries have said in private, particularly given the West’s immense reliance on China, the world’s second-largest economy, as both a trade partner and in some cases a manufacturing base.