TOKYO: Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (pic) will visit Vietnam and the Philippines from Sunday (April 27), officials said, as Tokyo seeks to ramp up regional ties after Donald Trump's tariff onslaught.
Ishiba's trip comes after China's President Xi Jinping conducted his own South-East Asia tour, with Beijing trying to position itself as a stable alternative to the United States as leaders battle to counter Trump's levies.
"Strengthening relations with South-East Asia, a global growth centre and strategic location, is one of the top priorities of Japanese diplomacy," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters at a regular briefing.
"Relations with Vietnam and the Philippines are of particular importance, with their populations exceeding 100 million and as they continue their strong economic growth."
In Vietnam, Xi urged the country to join forces to "oppose unilateral bullying and uphold the stability of the global free trade system", according to Chinese state media.
Hours later, Trump said Xi's visit to Hanoi had been aiming to "screw" the United States.
Hayashi said Wednesday that Japan "would like to take this opportunity to further strengthen our personal relations with Vietnamese leaders... and Philippine President Marcos".
An official statement from Manila said that Ishiba would visit the Philippines from April 29-30.
"The meeting of President Marcos and Prime Minister Ishiba will aim to deepen and improve economic and development cooperation, political and defence engagements, and people-to-people exchanges," it said.
Despite being the biggest investor into the United States, Japan has still been pinched by steep levies imposed by Trump on imports of cars, steel and aluminium.
Japan is also included in Trump's blanket 10 per cent levy, although Trump has paused his "reciprocal" duty of 24 per cent on the economic and strategic US ally.
Trump has also paused so-called reciprocal duties of 46 per cent on Vietnam and 49 per cent on Cambodia, where some Japanese companies are thought to have shifted an increasing share of production in recent years, partly to avoid the fallout from the last US-China trade war.
These firms reportedly include gaming giant Nintendo, whose hotly anticipated Switch 2 console is set to be launched globally on June 5. - AFP
