Takaichi Obscured by the Trump-Xi Summit
Former editorial writer for the Hokkaido Shimbun
You can find his blog, J Update here.
September 28, 2026
A week ago, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi hoped to display Japan as the leader of the Asia-Pacific region – backed by the unshaken support of the United States. She outlined her position during a 30-hour visit between September 21 and 23 to the United Nations in New York. She needs to rebuild her diplomacy, which has not been going very well since her comment on the Taiwan contingency last November. However, her effort was overshadowed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the U.S. and his meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.
The official purpose of Takaichi’s trip to the U.S. was to give her first speech at the annual General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). In her address, Takaichi emphasized Japan’s commitment to the rule of law. “Since the end of the Second World War, Japan, as a peace-loving nation, has attached great importance to the rule of law in the settlement of any disputes,” she said. In this case, “rule of law” is a veiled reference to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
At home, Takaichi has received considerable backlash to her indecisive response to U.S. sanctions on Tomoko Akane, the Japanese president of the ICC. Takaichi needs to reverse the downward trend in the approval rating for her cabinet. By pledging unwavering support for the ICC, Takaichi distanced herself from Trump, who called the ICC “the out of control institution” in his speech to the UNGA.
Diplomacy based on democratic values is a crucial element for Takaichi to distinguish Japan from China. She promotes the concept of a “Free and Open” Indo-Pacific (FOIP) that was initiated by her political mentor, former prime minister Shinzo Abe. When Abe proposed this doctrine in 2016, China was extending its power throughout the world under the brand name “One Belt One Road.” The brand covered China’s advance to the South China Sea, which was found unlawful by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016, a month before Abe proposed the FOIP. Abe hoped to use the FOIP to counter China’s territorial aims.
Former premier Fumio Kishida revised the FOIP in 2023 to apply it to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Kishida reiterated that Ukraine today would be East Asia tomorrow. Takaichi has now updated the FOIP again to explain Japan’s effort to secure an international supply chain, which was impacted by the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and by China’s weaponization of rare earths exports. Thus, the FOIP is a diplomatic tool for Japan to use to counter China’s growing influence in the world.
Takaichi also quoted from the FOIP in her meeting with Trump at the U.N. Headquarters just before her UNGP speech on September 22. “I appreciate Donald’s strong commitment to the Japan-U.S. alliance,” she said at the meeting. Takaichi tried to remind Trump of the fact that Japan should be the closest partner for the U.S. in Asia, hoping to deter Trump from making any excessive concessions on Taiwan in his meeting with Xi two days later.
However, rather than fostering the Japan-U.S. relationship, the meeting highlighted differences between Japan and the U.S. Takaichi told Trump that Japan had been and would in the future support the ICC, knowing that Trump was calling on countries to withdraw from it. Trump expressed concern about the depreciation of the Japanese yen. Takaichi did not refer to any discussion of Taiwan in her press conference after the meeting.
To her regret, the meeting between Trump and Xi on September 24 and 25 must not have been what Takaichi had hoped it would be. Xi urged Trump to oppose the independence of Taiwan, and Trump did not say how he had responded. Trump also did not say whether the U.S. would resume exporting weapons to Taiwan. “He understands very much how I feel,” Trump said after the meeting.
On regulation of artificial intelligence, on which both countries compete, Trump and Xi agreed to establish a body for bilateral dialogue. Both leaders hoped to minimize the difference between them. Fundamentally, however, both leaders were responding to domestic concerns. Trump must show that he can manage the China relationship to attract voters in the mid-term elections in November. For his part, Xi must show at the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 2027 that China is a great power equivalent to the U.S. Trump and Xi confirmed that they will have two meetings later this year, at APEC in China and at the G20 in the U.S..
Trump’s and Xi’s exchange of their views of World War II history – not necessarily those of trained historians – must have been a nightmare for Takaichi. In the welcoming ceremony, Trump noted the long-running close relationship between both nations – a contentious one that began only 50 years ago – and called them “allies in World War II,” a war that had ended 30 years earlier.” Xi replied at the state dinner that both nations “stood shoulder to shoulder in the fight against Japanese militarist aggressors.” The White House fact sheet on Xi’s visit also explicitly noted the wartime alliance.
Takaichi did not respond directly to their characterizations of history, stressing instead the firmness of the Japan-U.S. alliance even after the history of brutal warfare. In her speech to the UNGA Takaichi’s only historical reference was to call for the rescission of the “enemy states clauses” (Article 107 and parts of Articles 53 and 77) from the UN Charter, which apply to the Axis powers defeated in WWII, including Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Finland, as well as Japan.
Takaichi and her rightwing supporters hope that time has obscured Japan’s war history of atrocities and criminality. They believe that the Abe administration’s active revision and questioning of historical facts has caused painful memories to fade. Today, they believe, Japan should be only remembered as the war’s loser – devastated by relentless bombing and two atomic bombs.
However, Xi took the opportunity to emphasize that China and the U.S. were allies against an invading Japan, creating a bond “forged in blood and fire.” Trump agreed. Japan’s lingering war history and insufficient apologies resonate with Americans as they do with the Chinese. The past year’s identification of American POW remains from the war found in Tokyo, Taiwan, and the Philippines* and the POW’s hometown burials have revived memories of Japanese viciousness.
The negotiations between the two major powers -- over Taiwan’s status, the development of AI, and the interpretation of history – presumably will take place, regardless of Japan’s concerns. Takaichi once described her diplomacy as “flourishing on the world’s center stage,” tracking the aim of former premier Abe. The Trump-Xi meeting, however, and whatever its long-term outcome, revealed that Japan is marginalized by practice and history in the U.S.-China power game.
*Remains of American POWs of Japan who died in Takao (Kaohsiung), Taiwan; Subic Bay, the Philippines; Cabanatuan, the Philippines; and Tokyo, Japan who were buried in mass graves as unknowns after the war in the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines and the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii have been identified recently by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Hundreds of hometown burials with full military honors have taken place across the U.S. reviving memories of the War.
