Protocol experts obsess over gifts, gaffes and deliverables as Biden meets Kishida, Marcos Jnr
- High-profile meetings are meant to convey something ‘impressive to the world community and extremely useful for the bilateral relationship’, says US analyst
- For Kishida, who is struggling in Japanese polls, the pomp, pageantry and optics of his US visit provide an important vote of support back home
Kishida has been accorded particular honours – an official visit with a state dinner and a speech to a joint session of Congress – scripted events with lots of public ceremony and symbolism representing the highest expression of friendly relations between the US and a foreign ally. The meetings have resulted in a nearly unprecedented 70 “deliverables”.
“The utility of summits is to focus both governments in the months leading up to the summit on the areas where they can cooperate and the issues that they can resolve,” said Jeffrey Moon, founder of China Moon Strategies, who helped organise a state visit by Chinese president Jiang Zemin to Washington in 1997.
“They use the summit as an action-forcing event to get good results that can’t be done in the average course of business so that, when the leaders meet, there is something that is impressive to the world community and extremely useful for the bilateral relationship.”
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US, Japan hail upgraded ties, unveil raft of bilateral deals following Biden-Kishida summit
Kishida is the fifth leader to be granted such fulsome honours by Biden’s White House, but there is a complexity in this nuanced protocol world. Japan’s head of state is the emperor, so Kishida’s trip is characterised as an “official visit with a state dinner” – as are visits by Britain’s and Australia’s prime minister – rather than a full-on “state visit”.