U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel on Friday made a 1,200-mile (2,000-kilometer) trip from Tokyo to remote Yonaguni Island in Okinawa Prefecture — just 100 miles (160 km) from Taipei — as Washington and Tokyo look to present a united front amid growing concerns about a conflict over democratic Taiwan.
Emanuel is the first US ambassador to travel to the island, which is home to a Ground Self-Defense Force base, where he met with Yonaguni Mayor Kenichi Itokazu and had lunch with some of the approximately 250 SDF troops troops deployed there.
“I may be the first US ambassador to visit Yonaguni, but I predict I will not be the last,” Emanuel said in a post on social media platform for the Japanese economy”. westernmost island.”
