Biden welcomes Prime Minister Kishida and praises Japan’s growing clout on the international stage

By AAMER MADHANI and ZEKE MILLER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to the White House for talks on the delicate security situation in the Pacific, the war in Ukraine and more. Biden is honoring a leader who’s been one of his strongest allies in the face of international crises with a state dinner Wednesday. Kishida’s visit completes the Democratic administration’s feting of the leaders of the Quad, the informal partnership of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India that Bidens’s White House has focused on elevating. The leaders announces plans to upgrade U.S.-Japan military cooperation. Both sides want to tighten cooperation amid concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program and China’s increasing military assertiveness in the Pacific.