thank you i'm going to call. surprised. but. really. a long way. and critics alike telling us that. this is. coming up today a preview of the meeting between the leaders of japan and the united states. should you try to come to the fact. of the threat. across the country.

welcome to news asia it's good to have you with us japanese prime minister your she said to be the 1st world leader to visit u.s. president joe biden on friday reports suggest an increasingly assertive china will be a key theme of the talks japan is also a security ally of the united states and both have defined the nation as a quote cornerstone of peace security and prosperity in the in the pacific region i'll be discussing that further with an expert in a moment but 1st this report. and presidents and a prime minister new to their leadership roles but each with years of experience treading the fine line of tough diplomacy. increasingly the main tools of such diplomacy look like this. u.s. exercises with asian allies meant to deter aggression. aggression

especially from the chinese who have just this week sent fighter jets to skirt taiwanese airspace. taiwan itself proclaims its strength by showing off new naval hardware. all this as u.s. diplomats diplomatically tell the people's republic of china the p.r.c. to back off our commitment to taiwan is rock solid we've of course taken note. with great concern the pattern of ongoing p.r.c. efforts in attempts to intimidate in the region including in the context of taiwan taiwan will likely be a major part of prime minister sukkos talks with president biden in addition to the topic of what to do about china's disputed and military backed claims over islands that japan claims in the east china sea. because that is the true under

no country can protect its peace and security by itself amid such a complicated environment with the us and cooperation among allies and friendly nations is essential to what it can get the debt in just as japan needs assistance from the likes of the united states the u.s. needs to maintain japan as a strong ally. japan is course the world's 3rd largest economy the most powerful democracy in asia and a critical advanced technology partner with whom the united states going to be looking to both you know deter china from threatening taiwan punish chinese aggression or human rights violations and prevent china from accessing some of the world's most advanced technologies that it could use to build additional military power the japan-u.s. summit follows hot on the heels of frosty high level talks between the u.s.

and china late last month in washington japan sukkot will be pressed to firmly support the u.s. but he will have to return home to life as a neighbor to the americans global rival. and joining me from washington d.c. is she less myth he's author of the book. the politics of win a trip and a senior fellow for japan studies at the think tank the council on foreign relations welcome as myth is china and its activities in the indo-pacific going to be a focus of talks between prime ministers will go on president biden. well thank you for having me i'm delighted to be here yes of course china lives large in the region and looms large in u.s. thinking about the region and of course japan sits right next door already as you know has been a meeting of the quad the very rich japan in the united states attending it was

a 2 class 2 really in tokyo secretary of state link and secretary of defense austin so the alliance is already charged if you will to have a fairly in-depth conversation about how to move forward on your problem in about thirds to have a security alliance but how exactly does washington see talk you of aurora in the region. well the interesting thing about the alliance today is not it's not just how washington sees tokyo but also how to go seize washington that matters and i think that the japanese have been very astute and very active in the 4 years during president trumps tenure as president to build a coalition in the region to really make it necessary for the united states to step into a coalition approach the free and open indo-pacific approach as they call it so i think washington is looking to tokyo for ideas but tokyo is also looking to washington to be consistent and persistent in the way it addresses regional tensions how exactly does tokyo one progress report on from the vendor specific.

well as you know so has wrong a longstanding prohibition on the use of force so japan is not ready to have a very hard power response to china's rising military power nonetheless the alliance is the primary guarantee here guarantor of japanese security and so it hopes to send the message to china that while tokyo wants to have a dialogue across the region maybe cooperate on a variety of issues including building infrastructure investing in energy resources it also sees chinese activities especially maritime activities as being really counter to its interests and also to the interests of that. you spoke about lot of time concerns it does that explain the dialogue that has existed between the u.s. and japan over taiwan yes and so taiwan is an old issue in the japan china relationship and the u.s.

china relationship as you know it goes all the way back to the 1970 s. and both countries normalize their diplomatic relations so taiwan has a relationship with japan but not a military relationship surely there is no taiwan relations act which is what we have here in the united states that allows tokyo to be a partner with taiwan in its security however if you look at the map taiwan is very very close to the southwestern islands of japan proximity makes taiwan a real consideration when japanese defense planners if china were to up the pressure or continued the pressure on taiwan and there was some sort of military confrontation then japan would be immediately affected because it would be and its in its maritime borders not very far away from territory and rather talk about japanese concern there is another japanese concern is there not richest to balance its trade relationship with china is the biggest export market for japan how does

japan walk this line. well that's should everything for every country of the region and even for the united states the economic engine dependence of china is part of our strategic challenge at the moment i think japan has felt the brunt of beijing's ability to use that trade interdependence turn to its advantage and that was back in 2012 when the 2 countries had a dispute over the islands in the east china sea. islands and that point the chinese halted supplies rare earth materials which as you know are very important for manufacturing in japan but you see the increasing use by china of this economic engine dependence than other relationships as well so tokyo and washington in addition to camera and new delhi have been talking a little bit about how to build resilience how to be a rising risk standard pressure may emanate from asia. a lot of talk poverty have to be bitter over the time being should us move from the council on foreign

permission thank you so much for a time thinking rational recovery. but just as india thought it was easing its way out of the pandemic the country has been hit by a 2nd wave with a record high rate of infections controversy has erupted over the vaccination drive with the hardest hit states saying the government is not giving them enough vaccines as the issue threatens to get politicised fears grow that india may be running out of jobs a 4 day vaccination festival that up in proclaimed earlier this week appears to be more of a drop in the bucket. at this mall private hospital people are struggling to register against 1000. that the sheriff is one of them almost 70 he has short.

and. even if they become. hard to. get infected or at least i want to. do. with the crowd here today is larger than usual one staff member called it. this hospital in one point had to turn people because they had john out of. the. many hospitals in this area including the one right behind me in 1000 vaccine shortage why some of. the number of people who were vaccinated every other had to stop the vaccination process entirely for a few days. came at a time when several states in the country. including at the moment. the hospital did receive its stock in fact seem to day after having gone for nearly

a week without people hopefully they can get the job. well there was some hesitancy to get vaccinated earlier the past few weeks have seen demand increase rapidly. we didn't have the rock scene available for a short while i don't know why we weren't getting supply. started more people have started coming poor execution. before their wars and. india is recording and alarming number of new coronavirus cases every day and infections are now spreading much faster another was still in the area which also faced a vaccine crunch has its hands full with a spike in cases because of the size of infection we have increased what about capacity to events of course we are further increasing it to 122 bands are we are also working on our human resources manpower nursing but on medical staff to deal with our present situation as hospital scramble to increase capacity there are

clear signs the indian health care sector is again coming under severe strain. who founded a chain of hospitals offering affordable cost the 2nd be a tsunami the numbers are. struggling. struggling. to provide the facilities. but jobs says he is disappointed that the lessons from the past have not been learned adequately. for the people waiting here there is some really at least for now. they are getting their short. hoping that will give them some protection against this.

and that's it for today and of course. the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing. information. around a virus a. perspective .

controversial committed. to the point. vaccines are turning the tide but they're not without risks especially for women they've been re cases of blood clotting even fatal ones leading some governments to slow down vaccinations we have now today chosen to continue. with. each to lay puts more lives at risk as the corona virus spreads it's a balancing act between speed and caution in the fight against covert 19. the

risk of dying from cove it is much higher than getting a blood clot from a vaccine but even more concerning is a new report from oxford university that shows catching the corona virus puts you at even more risk of a deadly blood clot in a moment we'll talk to a vaccine scientist at johns hopkins university 1st this report. astra zeneca $1000.00 victor vaccine has hardly been out of the headlines since last december in till now it's been instrumental in the success of the u.k.'s vaccination program but from now on its use there will be restricted to those over 30 years of age there have been worries in the european union about its effectiveness and potential side effects germany initially restricted its used to under 60 five's now berlin is recommending it purely for over sixty's those worries were compounded by several cases of a rare thrombosis type following astra zeneca vaccinations some of them fatal. the

european medicines agency in amsterdam felt it was time to take a stance on the job its director stressing that the benefits of the antiviral agent far outweigh any risks. this vaccine has proven to be highly effective if it prevents if severe disease and hospitalized patients and he is saving lives vaccination is extremely important in helping us in the fight against scope at 19 and we need to use the fact things we have to protect us from the devastating effects scientists have been investigating the reports and circumstances of the throne both seas britain's medicines and health care regulator agency says 20000000 doses of the astra zeneca vaccine had been at ministered by the end of march with $79.00 cases of a thrombosis later reported 19 of which were fatal the cause is thought to be a rare immune reaction most of them presented some 2 weeks after inoculation there

are no apparent risk groups such as age or sex several countries like germany france and canada have tightened restrictions on the use of astra zeneca as covert 19 vaccine others have suspended it totally waiting for the e.m.a.'s verdict it has now recommended the continued unrestricted use of the astra zeneca jab regardless of any rare cases of thrombosis. so mixed messages there about vaccine safety to unpack this let's bring in coastal kolaches a vaccine scientist an infectious disease physician at johns hopkins university in baltimore maryland. so let's start with astra zeneca as we heard that's being given to more than half the adults in britain and is credited with saving tens of thousands of lives i gladly take it but authorities here in germany and other countries are blocking its use and offering no timely alternative isn't that in itself putting people's lives in danger. so when you have

a pandemic that's out of control and we have let the curve it maintain a pandemic then any facts then you have to weigh the risks and benefits of any available preventive such as a vaccine or treatment and for the astra zeneca vaccine it has been shown to have saved millions of lives already and so the the potential benefits might outweigh any risks now there are some very serious risks associated with it in very very rare circumstances and i think i think each country but also each individual needs to be able to weigh that risk benefit equation for themselves to decide whether or not they're willing to take that risk for the potential for the protection against the virus when you have a vaccine that's available and that's not being used people can die and that's something that each each government and each person needs to weigh and this isn't

only a problem with astra zeneca we've now got johnson and johnson 6000000 immunized in the united states and yet it's on hold because 6 people may have had side effects isn't one of the 1000000 an acceptable risk level during times like these. so i think that the equation in the united states it's a little bit different because we've vaccinated so many of our high risk individuals are ready and we have 2 other approved vaccines that are that are more available than johnson and johnson vaccine even is and i think where is europe has been gathering information about the astra zeneca vaccine for several weeks we're just starting to learn about any potential risks associated with johnson and johnson vaccine and so i think the pas is to gather that information to truly understand what that risk is is it one in a 1000000 or is there something higher is it even associate is the class that we

saw with with in those and fortunate women associated with it and so i think the. the pas is appropriate while we gather that information and make a decision about the risk benefits but i think in places where there is the virus is increasing in terms of the transmission and there is no alternative vaccine that it should be seriously considered to use this vaccine while that data is being gathered. in the u.s. the calculus is a little bit different because we do have to upturn it in fact don't seem to have the same risk the strange thing though is that and this is what will get many people especially women worried about this is that those people affected by calling were women in a certain age group and it's been a similar profile for astra zeneca as well so why is it being blocked for everyone or everyone under 60 or so. i am that is probably due

to a logistics and programatic issues but also because while we're gathering that information we need to understand better what that risk is and who truly is at risk while the majority of people who have been affected so far seem to be women there were men in europe who have had this unusual rare blood clot hammon and there was one man in the trial in the united states who had this unusual but clad occur and so we need to gather that information and understand the process better and who truly is at risk to be able to maybe target the vaccine to people who are at lower risk but you know it's interesting that you see it because there is a lot of adverse events from vaccines that seemed to particularly affect women and especially women in their productive years and that's probably because our hormones are different then in the premium post reproductive period and also from men and

that may put us that let me rest at an advantage or a benefit but they may also put us at. some increased risk from the adverse events if you look at the anaphylaxis cases that are happening after the m.r.i. to vaccines in the united states a vast majority of them are happening in women as well. so there's just there's a difference in the biology between men and women that we're just are you stand can go as far as saying that vector back seeings could be the problem in terms of the clotting that's been seen exactly. for terms of adverse events in terms of clotting and or adverse events. so each fact scene is going to have it it's different adverse events each x. you have farm has different kinds of adverse events that happen and so for the better vaccines especially for astra zeneca potentially free

a free johnson and johnson as well it looks like clotting may be an increased risk factor. that we didn't see with the m r n a vaccines and in the united states over 100000000 people have now been vaccinated with at one of the 2 m.r. in a vaccine is without the same sort of signal that we've seen with the with the with the at with the at various vaccines but this nest hasn't necessarily been seen with other ad know various facts seeds in the past so we need to better understand what is happening and i think that this pause allows scientists and researchers to really dig deep into each of these cases to better understand what's happening and also to understand the mechanisms of it has been fantastic having you on the show explain to us what all this means because of our love of johns hopkins university thank you very much for being on the show today. you very much take care. whatever

the risks of vaccines they had to stay for now more on that from derrick williams. will we only have to be vaccinated once or will we need regular booster shots. once again the straightforward answer is we don't know yet but a lot of experts do think it's very likely that even fully vaccinated people will need booster shots in the future there are a couple of different reasons why that might become necessary the 1st involves the fact that the vaccines we're using now have been approved for emergency use because they were safe and the vast majority of people have gotten them and also extremely effective at least in the short term but we still don't know how long that effectiveness on average will last don't forget it's been under a year since the very 1st subjects in trials receive their 1st shots but based

on what we know about naturally acquired immunity to the disease and what we know about other coronaviruses the general expectation among immunologists appears to be that most vaccinated people will remain largely immune to covert 19 for at least 6 months and likely retain at least some immunity for a year or 2 assuming the virus doesn't mutate faster than we think however nearly all the experts i've read now also say that down the line variants of sars toby 2 will change enough that we'll have to modify current vaccines at some point so the companies that make them are already in trials looking at possible ways to prolong back scene induced immunity and

a lot of those trials will involve giving test subjects booster shots of tweets vaccines. from williams i've been fizzling thanks for watching stay safe and she will get answered. the a. list

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be. above. this is interviews life from berlin reassuring a nervous ally the u.s. secretary of state makes an unannounced visit to afghanistan and new blinken arrives in kabul to brief gun officials on president joe biden's plans to withdraw all u.s. troops by september and bring an end to america's longest war also on the program demonstrators remember the hundreds of people killed since myanmar's military takeover in february this as security forces opened fire on protesting health workers.