Will the Trump-Xi wartime ally nostalgia prompt a Japanese rethink on China ties?

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is reportedly trying to arrange a phone call with Donald Trump following the US president’s nostalgic invocation of the alliance with China during World War II, references that sent shock waves through Tokyo.

Trump made the references as he welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House on Thursday for his first state visit to Washington in over a decade.

Both Trump and Xi repeatedly invoked their nations’ wartime alliance against Japan in their remarks – an unusual historical reference that immediately unsettled Tokyo.

Takaichi said on Friday that Tokyo and Washington were “allies bound by very strong ties” based on mutual trust. But she pointedly declined to comment on the Trump-Xi summit.