Western politicians sought to shore up ties in East Asia in the face of Chinese threats. French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Tokyo for a state visit where he is expected to seek Japan’s support for correcting “global economic imbalances” that benefit China in particular, a key issue ahead of June’s G7 meeting in France.
He heads to Seoul next; a recent trip to Beijing yielded little in the way of breakthroughs, experts said. Separately, a bipartisan group of US senators visited Taipei to push for a new $40 billion defense spending package to strengthen the self-ruled island — which Beijing claims as a renegade province — amid recent Chinese incursions into its air defense identification zone.