U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit three Asian countries next week. The trip is considered an important one as he seeks to strengthen U.S. alliances and partnerships with Asia at a time when U.S.-China relations are deteriorating.
The secretary will visit Japan, Mongolia and South Korea from Oct. 4-8, State Department spokesman Ortegaz said in a press release Tuesday (Sept. 29, 2020). During his visit to Tokyo, Pompeo will attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the Quadrilateral Cooperation Mechanism (QCM), which consists of the United States, Australia, India, and Japan. This mechanism is implemented to jointly counterbalance China on security and economic issues.
During his stay in Tokyo, Mr. Ortegaz said, Mr. Pompeo will also hold talks with relevant Japanese officials on issues of common interest. Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said when he took office that he would continue his Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies, including maintaining a strong relationship with the United States.
This is the first visit to Asia by a U.S. Secretary of State since his visit to Thailand last July. Over the past year, the U.S. and China have been at loggerheads over the Xinguan epidemic, the rights of the Uighur people in Xinjiang, Hong Kong’s national security laws, and the South China Sea, among many other issues.
A meeting between Pompeo and Yang Jiechi, the Chinese official in charge of foreign affairs, in Hawaii in June of this year failed to reduce tensions between the two countries.
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