Tokyo Report | Diplomacy | East Asia

Takaichi’s Pre-emptive Diplomacy: What Japan Needs From the Trump-Xi Summit

Prime Minister Takaichi made Tokyo’s concerns clear to Trump before Xi Jinping arrived in Washington. Will that actually impact the summit?

Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae meets with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sep. 22, 2026.

When Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae sat down with U.S. President Donald Trump in New York on September 22, the timing itself was the message. Chinese President Xi Jinping would arrive in Washington, D.C. the next day for state visit to Washington and his second summit with Trump this year. Takaichi said afterward that holding the talks at such a moment demonstrated the strength of the Japan-U.S. alliance. But the most important audience may have been Trump himself.

Tokyo’s anxiety is not hard to understand. Trump personally greeted Xi on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, an unusually warm welcome for a visiting foreign leader. Xi, for his part, struck a conciliatory tone upon arrival, declaring in a written statement that China and the United States “should be partners, not rivals.”

The hospitality will continue at the White House, with an elaborate welcoming ceremony and a state dinner. But expectations for substantive breakthroughs remain low. Washington and Beijing still face deep divisions over trade, artificial intelligence, Taiwan, and other issues.

With U.S. midterm elections about six weeks away, Trump has strong incentives to secure tangible economic results from China. Just before the summit, Washington and Beijing agreed to extend their trade truce by another two months, until January 10, postponing additional tariffs and export restrictions. The agreement reduces the immediate risk of renewed confrontation while giving both sides more time to negotiate.

For Tokyo, however, one concern stands above the economic bargaining: Taiwan.

China strongly opposes U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, while Trump has described such sales as a bargaining chip. Xi could use Trump’s desire for a broader economic deal to press Washington to continue delaying arms sales to the island. That has fueled concern in Tokyo that Taiwan could become part of a wider bargain between Washington and Beijing.

For Japan, Taiwan is a critical security issue. Japan’s southwestern islands lie close to Taiwan, and Takaichi’s remarks in the Diet last November that a Chinese use of force against Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan triggered a sustained Chinese pressure campaign against Tokyo. Any significant weakening of U.S. support for Taiwan could therefore have direct implications for Japan’s security and for deterrence across the Western........

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