TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who recently triggered China’s fury with a comment about Taiwan, said Tuesday that she received a call from US President Donald Trump right after he spoke with China’s leader.

Takaichi, a hard-line conservative, said Trump expressed his friendship to her in a call he made to her on Tuesday after a phone conversation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“President Trump told me that he and I are extremely good friends and that I should call him any time,” Takaichi said in brief remarks made to reporters at the prime minister’s office in Tokyo. Takaichi, however, did not say whether they discussed her Taiwan comment.