Japan Strongly Denies WSJ Report on Trump's Taiwan Advice to PM Takaichi, Demands Retraction
The Japanese government has strongly denied a report by the U.S. newspaper Wall Street Journal (WSJ) which claimed that U.S. President Trump, during a phone call with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the 25th, advised her to moderate her rhetoric regarding Taiwan. Japan has also revealed that it has requested the WSJ to retract the article. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara explicitly stated, regarding the WSJ article's description that "President Trump advised [her] not to provoke the Chinese government on issues concerning Taiwan's sovereignty," that "it should be made clear that there is no such fact," directly refuting the report's content. The Japanese government also disclosed that it has already requested the WSJ to retract the article. While the WSJ report was based on information from sources familiar with the matter, it drew immediate criticism on social media, with terms like "misinformation," "fake story," and "...