WASHINGTON: The United States and Japan vowed Friday to stand firm together against an assertive China and to step up cooperation on climate change and next-generation technology as President Joe Biden made his first summit a show of alliance unity.
After waiting nearly three months for his first foreign guest due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden told Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga that Japan enjoyed the United States’ “iron-clad support” on security issues and beyond.
“We’re going to work together to prove that democracies can still compete and win in the 21st century,” Biden, affectionately calling the Japanese leader “Yoshi,” told a socially distanced news conference in the White House Rose Garden.
A joint statement called for “candid conversations” with China and did not hold back, raising concerns over Beijing’s growing maritime moves, its clampdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang and growing tension over Taiwan.
The statement reiterated that the US-Japan Security Treaty covers the Japanese-administered Senkaku islands – one of several areas in the region where Beijing, which calls them the Diaoyu, has increasingly shown its might.
The United States and Japan “recognize the importance of deterrence to maintain peace and stability in the region,” the statement said.
“We oppose any unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East China Sea,” read one line highlighted by Suga.
The Chinese embassy in the United States hit back on Saturday, expressing “strong concern and firm opposition” to the comments.
“It cannot be more ironic that such an attempt at stoking division and building blocs against other countries is put under the banner of ‘free and open,’” a statement by the embassy said, referring to a US pledge to build a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region.
The matters raised “bear on China’s fundamental interests and allow no interference,” it added.
Biden and Suga also emphasized “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and encouraged “the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues,” as Beijing steps up air incursions in Taiwan.
While cautiously worded, it was the first time a Japanese leader has joined a US president in a statement on Taiwan since the allies separately switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing in the 1970s.
Taiwan is an especially sensitive issue for Beijing, which claims the self-governing democracy.
The forthright statement comes despite Japan’s efforts in recent years not to antagonize China, its top trading partner, including by not joining Western nations in sanctions over human rights.
Suga echoed Biden’s themes as he described the US-Japan alliance as the “foundation of peace and stability” in the region.
“Freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law are the universal values that link our alliance,” Suga said.
In a highly unusual comment by a Japanese leader on the US domestic scene, Suga also voiced concern over a wave of attacks in the United States against people of Asian descent.
Biden’s second in-person summit will take place next month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, part of the new administration’s strategy of shoring up alliances as it zeroes in on China as America’s most pressing challenge.
On another of his key priorities, Biden said he and Suga agreed on the need for “ambitious” climate commitments and indicated that both nations would soon announce goals by 2030.
Biden will lead a virtual summit next week in hopes of rallying climate pledges amid growing evidence of a planetary crisis as average temperatures hit record highs and natural disasters become more frequent.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, promised under the Paris accord to reduce emissions by 26 percent by 2030 but from 2013 levels – a goal that experts say is not bold enough to meet Suga’s goal of a carbon-neutral Japan in 2050.
“We confirmed that Japan and the US will lead global decarbonization,” Suga said.
Biden and Suga said they would step up joint development and testing of fifth-generation Internet – as well as the sixth-generation technologies of the future.
The United States and Japan must “maintain and sharpen our competitive edge” and ensure that “those technologies are governed by shared democratic norms that we both share – norms set by democracies, not by autocracies,” Biden said.
China’s Huawei has taken an early dominant role in 5G, which is becoming a crucial part of the global economy, despite heavy US pressure on the company, which Washington argues poses threats to security and privacy.
A joint statement said the United States had committed $2.5 billion and Japan another $2 billion.
Masashi Adachi, a special adviser to Suga, told reporters that the agreement was more about joint development than fresh funding, pointing to several projects underway in Japan on 5G development.
Suga in September succeeded Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, who was one of the few democratic allies to manage to preserve stable relations with Biden’s volatile predecessor Donald Trump.
Biden and Suga also recommitted to the denuclearization of North Korea and discussed next moves following Trump’s unusually personal diplomacy with the totalitarian state.
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US, Japan show united front on China in Biden’s first summit
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US, Japan show united front on China in Biden’s first summit
- ‘We’re going to work together to prove that democracies can still compete and win in the 21st century’
Ex-president’s war crimes trial sparks fierce debate in Kosovo
PRISTINA: In Kosovo, where former guerrilla leaders are still celebrated as heroes, the war crimes trial of ex-president Hashim Thaci and other senior commanders has reignited bitter debate over the legacy of the independence struggle.
The trial in The Hague, which hears closing statements this week, involves Thaci and three other senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the 1990s war against Serbia.
All are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, with prosecutors alleging they bear criminal responsibility for murders, torture and illegal detentions carried out by KLA members.
Thaci, who immediately resigned from the presidency after his indictment, and his co-accused all pleaded not guilty.
But in the Balkan nation, the trial has sparked protests, political backlash, and public anger.
For many in Kosovo, the trial represents the prosecution of the KLA itself, and with it the country’s independence movement, says international relations specialist Donika Emini.
“For decades, the KLA and its members have been glorified for their role in the war, while the court has challenged this dominant narrative,” said Emini, a researcher at the University of Graz Center for Southeast European Studies.
-’Unprecedented injustice’-
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was set up by the country’s parliament. It investigates and prosecutes suspected war crimes committed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas during the war.
Critics of the trial object to the fact that Serbia, which has never recognized Kosovo’s independence, has provided some of the evidence used at the trial. This, they argue, indicates bias in the proceedings.
The scale of atrocities committed by Serbian police and military during the war makes their involvement particularly sensitive. Thousands of ethnic Albanian victims were discovered in mass graves after the end of the war.
But the indictment against Thaci and the other defendants alleges that KLA members also committed crimes against hundreds of civilians and non-combatants at detention sites in Kosovo and northern Albania.
The victims, it says, included Serbs, Roma and Kosovo Albanians deemed political opponents.
Although the court is part of Kosovo’s judicial system, it is nevertheless based in The Hague and staffed solely by international judges in a bid to protect witnesses from possible retribution at home.
But its foreign location has fueled resentment back in Kosovo. It was hard to find anyone on the streets of the capital who supported the trial.
“This is an unprecedented injustice,” Agim Zuka, 63, told AFP in Pristina.
“There is no reason to try them. They have only fought the just war of the Albanian people of Kosovo,” 61-year-old Bahtije Rashica said.
- Protest march -
A march in support of the defendants has been organized to mark the country’s independence day — which also happens to come just before the final day of closing arguments in the trial.
Thaci’s own party organized the protest, which is expected to draw large crowds after weeks of nationwide campaigning against the trial.
Giant photos of Thaci and co-accused Kadri Veseli have also been placed in prominent squares in several towns and cities.
“This campaign has fueled resistance to the court and has been quite effective in articulating criticism for the lack of transparency and perceived inconsistencies in its work,” said the academic Emini.
But the case against the four has taken decades to build and contains extensive details of brutal crimes allegedly committed by members of the KLA between 1998 and 1999.
The prosecutors argue that, as senior figures in the armed militia, they ran a “joint criminal enterprise” that murdered, tortured, persecuted and illegally detained people at dozens of sites in Kosovo and Albania.
-’No common narrative’-
The court’s attempts at outreach have faced a backlash inside the country.
In May, a planned press briefing from its president had to be scrapped after smoke bombs were set off in front of her hotel, while school lectures from court officials drew outrage from politicians and some media outlets.
“Each decision of the Special Court not only affects individuals, but is closely linked to the history of the state and the identity of Kosovo,” said Emini.
Any outcome, particularly a guilty verdict, would change international perceptions of a “sensitive period” that had “no common narrative in the Balkans or in Kosovo,” she added.
“It will undoubtedly have symbolic consequences and will change the narrative and the way history will see Kosovo.”
The trial in The Hague, which hears closing statements this week, involves Thaci and three other senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the 1990s war against Serbia.
All are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, with prosecutors alleging they bear criminal responsibility for murders, torture and illegal detentions carried out by KLA members.
Thaci, who immediately resigned from the presidency after his indictment, and his co-accused all pleaded not guilty.
But in the Balkan nation, the trial has sparked protests, political backlash, and public anger.
For many in Kosovo, the trial represents the prosecution of the KLA itself, and with it the country’s independence movement, says international relations specialist Donika Emini.
“For decades, the KLA and its members have been glorified for their role in the war, while the court has challenged this dominant narrative,” said Emini, a researcher at the University of Graz Center for Southeast European Studies.
-’Unprecedented injustice’-
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was set up by the country’s parliament. It investigates and prosecutes suspected war crimes committed by ethnic Albanian guerrillas during the war.
Critics of the trial object to the fact that Serbia, which has never recognized Kosovo’s independence, has provided some of the evidence used at the trial. This, they argue, indicates bias in the proceedings.
The scale of atrocities committed by Serbian police and military during the war makes their involvement particularly sensitive. Thousands of ethnic Albanian victims were discovered in mass graves after the end of the war.
But the indictment against Thaci and the other defendants alleges that KLA members also committed crimes against hundreds of civilians and non-combatants at detention sites in Kosovo and northern Albania.
The victims, it says, included Serbs, Roma and Kosovo Albanians deemed political opponents.
Although the court is part of Kosovo’s judicial system, it is nevertheless based in The Hague and staffed solely by international judges in a bid to protect witnesses from possible retribution at home.
But its foreign location has fueled resentment back in Kosovo. It was hard to find anyone on the streets of the capital who supported the trial.
“This is an unprecedented injustice,” Agim Zuka, 63, told AFP in Pristina.
“There is no reason to try them. They have only fought the just war of the Albanian people of Kosovo,” 61-year-old Bahtije Rashica said.
- Protest march -
A march in support of the defendants has been organized to mark the country’s independence day — which also happens to come just before the final day of closing arguments in the trial.
Thaci’s own party organized the protest, which is expected to draw large crowds after weeks of nationwide campaigning against the trial.
Giant photos of Thaci and co-accused Kadri Veseli have also been placed in prominent squares in several towns and cities.
“This campaign has fueled resistance to the court and has been quite effective in articulating criticism for the lack of transparency and perceived inconsistencies in its work,” said the academic Emini.
But the case against the four has taken decades to build and contains extensive details of brutal crimes allegedly committed by members of the KLA between 1998 and 1999.
The prosecutors argue that, as senior figures in the armed militia, they ran a “joint criminal enterprise” that murdered, tortured, persecuted and illegally detained people at dozens of sites in Kosovo and Albania.
-’No common narrative’-
The court’s attempts at outreach have faced a backlash inside the country.
In May, a planned press briefing from its president had to be scrapped after smoke bombs were set off in front of her hotel, while school lectures from court officials drew outrage from politicians and some media outlets.
“Each decision of the Special Court not only affects individuals, but is closely linked to the history of the state and the identity of Kosovo,” said Emini.
Any outcome, particularly a guilty verdict, would change international perceptions of a “sensitive period” that had “no common narrative in the Balkans or in Kosovo,” she added.
“It will undoubtedly have symbolic consequences and will change the narrative and the way history will see Kosovo.”
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