US says China shouldn’t see Joe Biden’s meetings with Japanese, Filipino leaders as a threat

China has “no reason” to view the first-ever trilateral summit between the US, Japan and the Philippines as a threat, a top White House official said on Friday.

“These meetings were not about any one other nation. This was about deepening and revitalising existing alliances and partnerships and strengthening some new ones,” said John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman.

Describing the expansion of defence and economic engagements between the three long-term allies merely as an exercise to explore “mutual opportunities” in the strategic Indo-Pacific region, he added that “there’s no reason for the PRC to look at this as any kind of a threat”.

In recent years, Washington has worked to create a network of allies with security blocs and mutual defence agreements to offset what it calls a growing threat from Beijing in the contentious South China Sea, East China Sea and Taiwan Strait. China opposes these efforts as “exclusive groupings for bloc confrontation”.

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US, Japan hail upgraded ties, unveil raft of bilateral deals following Biden-Kishida summit

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden hosted his counterpart from the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for talks that involved their separate territorial disputes with China in the region.

The overlapping claims with Japan are focused on Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which China calls the Diaoyu Islands, and in the case of the Philippines it’s the Second Thomas Shoal, or Ren’ai Jiao, in the South China Sea.

“When we stand as one, we’re able to forge a better future for all,” Biden said on Thursday before meeting with the leaders, warning that “any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed