U.S. Department of State
Washington, D.C.
12:54 P.M. EDT
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Please — please be seated. Mr. Prime Minister, Mrs. Kishida, Evan and I are so honored to join Vice President Harris, Second Gentleman Emhoff in welcoming you to the State Department.
We're delighted to be joined by a remarkable group of colleagues, friends, and dignitaries.
And a special salute to our colleagues from Congress who are here, who just witnessed your remarkable speech. I think it may be, as well, the first time that anyone speaking before a joint session has managed to reference "The Flintstones." (Laughter.) But more about that later.
Now, the very first time that the United States had the honor of hosting a delegation from Japan was in 1860. Their journey then took three months to get here. Upon arriving, they were received first at the White House, then the State Department for what, I'm told, was a boisterous dinner fueled by champagne, music, and dancing. We'll see what we can do about that. (Laughter.)
The Japanese delegation observed a debate in the United States Senate. And at the U.S. Naval Observatory, they gazed through a telescope for their first-ever close-up view of the surface of the Moon.
From the time of that inaugural diplomatic mission, generations of Americans and Japanese have had their horizons expanded by the exchange between our countries.
Since Tokyo's mayor donated the first cherry trees — we've heard a lot about cherry trees the last couple of days — to our nation's capital over a century ago, their blossoms are a way that many of us mark the beginning of another spring, a reminder of our friendship and its immeasurable impact on our people and on the entire world.
I shared with the Prime Minister yesterday that people come from across the United States to Washington because of the cherry trees. It's a remarkable thing that this has become one of the most powerful symbols of our capital, and it's thanks to Japan.
Over these past three years, we have invested tremendous energy into making this relationship between our countries even stronger. We bolstered our security cooperation and increased our cooperation on renewable energy. We're deepening collaboration on artificial intelligence, on quantum computing, and on other technologies that will shape the 21st century.
Together with India and Australia, we've revitalized the Quad.
We've elevated trilateral cooperation with the Republic of Korea to unprecedented levels.
Today, we're taking a similarly ambitious step with the Philippines.
We're leading the G7 and meeting the fundamental challenges of our time, from helping Ukrainians defend themselves against Russia's war of aggression to helping countries around the world build infrastructure vital to expanding opportunity.
We're standing side by side in defending a free and open international order that, for decades, has bolstered our shared security and prosperity.
That we've done all this in partnership with a son of Hiroshima speaks to the spirit of healing and regeneration that animates this exceptional relationship.
Of course, the ties that bind us have been forged not only by our governments but, principally, by generations of Japanese and Americans from all walks of life. And like the saplings that were brought here by the Prime Minister, these relationships took root, they grew, and they branched out in ways that were probably impossible to predict.
In 1872, it was an American schoolteacher who introduced baseball to Japan. He taught at Kaisei Academy, the same high school where the Prime Minister would eventually play second base. (Laughter.)
Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic, the "Seven Samurai," inspired one of our great Westerns, "The Magnificent Seven." Decades later, the American Best Picture "Unforgiven" was remade in Japan with the cowboy traded in for a samurai in Imperial Japan.
In 1963, a Japanese trade official named Kishida Fumitake was posted in New York City and brought along his then six-year-old son, Fumio. The future prime minister later said that his struggles at that time to express himself in a new and unfamiliar language taught him, and I quote, "the importance of listening, especially to those whose voices often go unheard" and first inspired him to dream of a career in politics.
I think anyone who heard the Prime Minister speak last night at the White House and today before our Congress know how he's mastered the ability to speak to people but also, based on what he says so clearly, to listen to them. This is a man of not only extraordinary leadership but deep empathy that's reflected in his leadership.
Not far from here, at the Smithsonian's Modern Art Museum, the record for the two most popular exhibits are held by the same artist: Yayoi Kusama. Many of you have seen these installations, her "Infinity Mirror Rooms," where bright, glowing, polka dotted-cover — covered orbs seem to extend on forever.
Early in her career, Kusama wrote a letter to the great American painter Georgia O'Keeffe looking for advice. She dreamed of moving to New York but felt daunted. O'Keeffe wrote back to her, "Make the leap." Kusama did, and the rest is truly infinity.
These threads that connect our people, connect our cultures through time, they feel a little bit like Kusama's installations — spreading with radiant, glowing ties as far as the eye can see, including into space, where we're working together on everything from running an International Space Station to using the James Webb Telescope to better understand how our universe was formed in the first place.
And now, more than 160 years after that first Japanese delegation came to the United States and looked at the Naval Observatory through a telescope at the moon, we've agreed to be the first two nations to step foot on its surface together — and drive around on it, too. We have a lunar rover that Japan is building, a model of which you'll be able to see when you walk out of the State Department today.
