Japan, the US and South Korea are negotiating an agreement on sharing real-time data on North Korean missile launches, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said yesterday.
There has been no agreement yet, but “I understand that defense authorities are vigorously proceeding to set up an arrangement,” Matsuno said.
“The security environment surrounding Japan and South Korea is becoming more severe and more complex, and coordination between the two countries, as well as trilaterally with the United States, has become increasingly important,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
Japan and South Korea have been separately linked to data from US radar systems, but not directly to each other due to difficult relations strained by disputes over history, most recently over South Korean court rulings in 2018 ordering Japanese companies to compensate South Korean workers for abuses including forced labor during World War II.
Leaders of the three countries in November last year agreed to speed up information sharing on North Korean missile launches.
Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper reported earlier yesterday that Tokyo and Seoul are nearing an agreement on connecting their radars via a US system to share real-time North Korean missile warning information, which would help strengthen Japanese missile defense capabilities.
The Yomiuri said that the three countries are expected to reach an agreement early next month on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual defense ministers’ conference in Singapore.
Japanese and South Korean defense ministers would hold bilateral talks during the conference, the newspaper said.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS