An “increasingly severe” security environment has made deepening security ties with the Philippines a necessity, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday after a meeting with his counterpart in Manila.
Speaking as he concluded a two-day visit that included a tour of Philippine air bases, Japanese Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani said the two nations hoped to achieve greater operational collaboration.
“[Philippine] Secretary [of National Defense Gilberto] Teodoro Jr and I firmly concurred that the security environment surrounding us is becoming increasingly severe and it is ... necessary to further enhance defense cooperation,” Nakatani said.
Photo: AFP
He said that the nations had agreed to establish “strategic dialogue between high-level operational officers.”
Nakatani’s visit comes on the heels of a foreign ministers’ meeting last month where the Philippines and Japan vowed to strengthen security cooperation to counter China’s actions in key sea trade routes, including the disputed South China Sea.
Teodoro told yesterday’s joint news conference that the two nations shared the “common cause of resisting any unilateral attempt to reshape ... international law by force.”
China has deployed navy and coast guard vessels in a bid to bar the Philippines from strategically important reefs and islands in the South China Sea, leading to a string of confrontations.
The Philippines in December last year said that a China Coast Guard vessel used water cannon and “sideswiped” a government fisheries department vessel, and last week the Philippine Coast Guard said a Chinese navy helicopter came “within 10 feet” (3m) of a surveillance plane carrying journalists over the contested Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島).
Japan is a key financier of Philippine efforts to modernize its South China Sea patrol craft, as well as maritime surveillance systems including radar installations.
Beijing claims the strategic waterway in almost its entirety despite an international tribunal ruling that its claim lacked any legal basis.
Both Tokyo and Manila are allies of the US, which has been strengthening an arc of alliances to deter China’s claims in the Pacific Ocean.
The Philippine Senate late last year ratified a key pact with Japan that would allow them to deploy troops on each other’s soil. The agreement, which now awaits ratification in Tokyo, also allows for increased joint combat drills.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS