President Joe Biden and his G-7 counterparts will spend a considerable amount of time discussing China at their gathering in Hiroshima, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden and his G-7 counterparts will spend a considerable amount of time discussing China at their gathering in Hiroshima, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
“China’s gonna be key on the agenda here in Japan,” Kirby said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Hiroshima. “And I think you’re going to see the G-7 leaders all speak with one voice about the challenges that China poses here in the Indo-Pacific and around the world.”
Biden arrived in the city on Thursday. The US president was scheduled to leave the summit and travel to Papua New Guinea and then to Australia, but he canceled those visits to continue talks with Republicans to stave off a historic US default. The president has drawn criticism from Republicans for traveling abroad, and from others who say he should’ve carried on with the planned stops.
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“I heard comments by analysts that our credibility in the region is suffering because we’re not going on two other stops,” Kirby said. “But the credibility really suffers if we end up being a debtor nation.”
Biden held a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida upon arriving in Hiroshima on Thursday. The president is scheduled to travel back to the US on Sunday.
–With assistance from Jordan Fabian.
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