Kishida deserves credit for passage of Ukraine aid: U.S. diplomat
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida should be given a share of the credit for U.S. congressional passage of a long-overdue national security supplemental that includes aid for Ukraine, a senior diplomat said Wednesday.
Kurt Campbell, the second-highest ranking official at the U.S. State Department, said Japan's strategic thinking is increasingly becoming global, and Tokyo, unlike in the past, is persuading Washington to do more to exercise leadership in dealing with international issues.
Campbell's comments at a think tank event on reviewing Kishida's recent visit to Washington came a day after the U.S. legislature at last passed the $95 billion aid package, which also provides funding for Israel and Taiwan.
The deputy secretary of state said Kishida should receive "at least a degree of credit" for the approval of the supplemental, considering that a number of U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers told the diplomat they were "quite moved by" the Japanese leader's speech about two weeks ago in a joint session of Congress.
After months of gridlock caused by infighting among Republicans over Washington's commitments to democracy around the world, the House, which the party controls by a narrow margin, passed the budget on Saturday and the Democratic-led Senate endorsed it on Tuesday night.
"It's a good day for America, it's a good day for Europe and it's a good day for world peace, for real. This is consequential," Biden said Wednesday shortly after he signed the supplemental into law. "It continues America's leadership in the world."
When Kishida addressed the joint meeting on April 11, he urged U.S. lawmakers not to turn their eyes from challenges in Europe, the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere.
"You believed that freedom is the oxygen of humanity. The world needs the United States to continue playing this pivotal role in the affairs of nations," Kishida said. "And yet, as we meet here today, I detect an undercurrent of self-doubt among some Americans about what your role in the world should be."
Campbell said at the Hudson Institute that until recently "it was the United States encouraging Japan to take steps," such as increasing its defense budget and extending its power to wider regions of the world, but what occurred during Kishida's visit was "Japan pushing us."
Campbell, a major architect of the Biden administration's approach to Asia, said, "Japan is engaging us in an incredibly effective way" and "the sense of trust and confidence is real."
Pointing out that the U.S.-Japan relationship has won "an enormous amount of bipartisan support" even at a time of political uncertainty, he said the April 10 summit between Biden and Kishida set the stage for further partnership in a range of areas, not just defense cooperation based on the decades-old security treaty.
Regardless of thorny domestic challenges, stemming in part from the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November, Campbell said he is "more confident about the future" of the relationship, which he calls "the most important bilateral partnership on the planet" for the United States.
Campbell said such confidence was reinforced for him by hearing conversations between the two leaders in private moments.
"I am struck by more than anything...something that happens that's unique and important when democratic leaders gather," he said.
Without going into detail, he said, "Prime Minister Kishida was very clear with the president at a time when we were uncertain about the supplemental, you know, lots of other challenges, and it mattered to us and we appreciate it."
Soon after Biden spoke from the White House, the Pentagon announced the first tranche of aid for Ukraine from nearly $61 billion earmarked for the war-torn country.
The tranche worth about $1 billion includes air defense interceptors, armored vehicles and ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, to help Ukraine's embattled military push back Russia's invasion.
U.S. officials said the weapons are expected to reach the battlefield within days, arriving as Ukraine has struggled for months to replenish its depleted forces in the face of Russian advances backed by countries such as China and North Korea.
