US President Joe Biden on Friday accepted an invitation to visit Japan in the late spring during his virtual meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, according to a senior administration official.
It would be Biden's first visit as president to Asia, a region he's vowed to prioritize even as crises with Russia and the Middle East have demanded his attention.
Japan is also concerned about China's actions in the South and East China Seas, including over a set of disputed islands that both nations claim as their own. While Biden remains focused on domestic issues and the current crisis in eastern Europe, he"wanted it to be known clearly" that the United States still intends to"step up our game in the Indo-Pacific," the official said.
Entering his second year in office, Biden has made clear he is looking to travel around the United States more to sell his agenda. But officials say he also hopes to travel overseas as well to engage with leaders and bolster American alliances. At the same time, North Korea has recently ended a period of relative quiet, ramping up its missile tests and signaling a return to more provocative actions.
This week, North Korea said it would bolster its defense against the United States and evaluate"restarting all temporally suspended activities," according to state media KCNA on Thursday.
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