U.S. strongly committed to Japan's defense, Biden tells Kishida, hails military boost

U.S. President Joe Biden told Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday that the United States remained strongly committed to its alliance with Japan and praised Tokyo's "historic" defense reforms.

Kishida is in Washington on the last stop in a tour of the G7 industrial powers and has been seeking to bolster long-standing alliances amid rising concern in Japan, and the United States, about mounting regional security threats from China, North Korea and Russia.

In a meeting at the White House, Biden called it a "remarkable moment" in the U.S.-Japan alliance and said the two nations had never been closer.

"Let me be crystal clear: The United States is fully, thoroughly, completely committed to the alliance, and importantly ... to the defense of Japan," he said, while also thanking Kishida for strong leadership in working closely on technology and economic issues.