Japan yesterday vowed to bolster military ties with Australia, with Tokyo’s top diplomat saying that the “like-minded” partners must stick together to combat shared regional threats.
Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa and Japanese Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara met their Australian counterparts at an old army fort outside Melbourne, striking deals on greater air force cooperation and expanded military exercises.
They also agreed to jointly help the Philippine Coast Guard, which is in a tussle with Chinese ships in the South China Sea.
Photo:Reuter
“Amidst the increasingly difficult security environment in the Indo-Pacific, we need to constantly raise Japan-Australia security cooperation to a new height,” Kamikawa said after the meeting, touting a “like-minded partnership.”
China’s growing economic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region — and its assertiveness in territorial disputes — has rattled the US and allies such as Japan and Australia.
Tokyo has in the past few weeks accused China of deliberately sailing a naval ship through its waters and flying a surveillance plane into its air space.
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) said that the meeting raised “serious concerns” about recent “incursions” into Japanese territory.
The meeting produced agreements for Japan and Australia to boost air force cooperation.
Japan’s Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade could soon take part in US Marines rotations based in Australia’s key northern base near Darwin.
Kihara said that Japan was considering whether its fleet of F-35 stealth jets could be deployed to Australian air fields, but said an agreement on this was yet to be struck.
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