US President Barack Obama (L) accompanies Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe during a visit to Lincoln Memorial on April 27, 2015, in Washington
DC. (AFP photo)
US
President Barack Obama is hosting Japan’s prime minister at the White
House as their countries engage in a power game to keep a rising China
in check.
Obama will hold talks with Shinzo Abe at the
Oval Office on Tuesday to discuss US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific
region as well as a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement — a
12-nation deal to liberalize commerce around the Pacific rim.
On
Monday afternoon, the US president played guide while taking his guest
on an unannounced tour of the Lincoln Memorial on the western end of the
National Mall in Washington, DC.
During their White House
meeting, Obama and Abe will try to build political momentum to lessen
resistance to the Pacific trade deal in both Japan and the United
States.
US
President Barack Obama (L) and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visit
the Lincoln Memorial in on April 27, 2015. (AFP photo)
Obama
has undertaken an effort to “pivot” US economic and military resources
to Asia and has argued that without the trade agreement, China will step
into the breach.
"If we don't write the rules, China will write the rules out in that region," Obama said earlier in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We will be shut out — American businesses, American agriculture. That will mean a loss of US jobs."
Obama and Abe will also talk about ways to boost the Japan-US military alliance, with China again looming in the background.
The
Japanese and American foreign and defense ministers also held meetings
in New York, where they revised defense guidelines focused on bolstering
Japan’s military capability amid growing tensions with China in
disputed waters in the East and South China Sea.
From
left to right: Japanese Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani; Japanese
Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida; US Secretary of State John
Kerry and US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter attend a press
conference in New York City on April 27, 2015.
The
new rules, which build on Japan's missile defense, mine sweeping and
ship inspections, are the first revisions of the US-Japan defense
cooperation in 18 years.
In addition to Washington, Abe plans to visit Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles during his visit.
HRJ/HRJ
