The United States and Japan announced, at the conclusion of a ministerial meeting held in Washington, Wednesday, their intention to strengthen their defense alliance to include Resist any attack Through space, in a move that comes in the midst of increasing Chinese and North Korean threats and rising tensions over Taiwan.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said, during a joint press conference with his Japanese counterpart and the defense ministers of the two countries: “We agree that China poses the greatest strategic challenge” to the two countries.
The four ministers met two days before a US-Japanese summit to be held in Washington, Friday, between President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is currently on a European-North American tour.
And Blinken stressed during the press conference that the United States “warmly welcomes” the new defense strategy that Japan recently adopted, and made it clear that the two countries agreed that the mutual defense treaty concluded between them also includes attacks that take place through space, in a step that comes in the midst of the increase in Chinese capabilities via satellites. synthetic.
He added that this agreement means that any attack through space against any of the two countries would activate Article 5 of the bilateral defense treaty, which states that any attack on either country is also an attack on the other country.
For his part, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that his country will deploy a rapid reaction unit from the US Marine Corps to the island of Okinawa in southern Japan to enhance the defense capabilities of its ally in the face of growing Chinese threats.
“By 2025, we will replace an artillery battalion with this force that will be deadlier and more mobile,” Austin said, in “an increasingly difficult security environment.”
The Pentagon master stressed that this unit “will make a significant contribution to strengthening Japan’s defense and ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
There are currently about 50,000 American soldiers in Japan, more than half of whom are stationed on the island of Okinawa.
Kishida European visit
Before arriving in the United States, the Japanese Prime Minister visited a number of European countries, and discussed with them some security and defense agreements.
Kishida and his British counterpart, Rishi Sunak, signed a defense agreement in London on Wednesday, allowing the two countries to deploy forces on each other’s territory, in the latest move towards closer security ties.
“This mutual access agreement is very important for our two countries as it reinforces our commitment to the Indo-Pacific,” Sunak said in a statement.
Last Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron and Kishida expressed, during a meeting in Paris, their desire to strengthen the partnership between their two countries in the security field in the Asia-Pacific region.
Referring to China, Kishida said, “At a time when unilateral attempts to forcefully change the status quo in the East and South China Seas are intensifying, and the security environment is becoming increasingly tense, we wish to continue strengthening cooperation with France,” the country that has territory in Pacific.
The Japanese Prime Minister pointed out that one of the areas of cooperation that the two countries want to enhance is joint military exercises.
Japanese maneuvers
With the start of the new year 2023, the Japanese Kyodo News Agency reported, quoting an informed source, that the Ministry of Defense intends to develop several long-range missiles with a range of about three thousand kilometers and aims to deploy them in the next decade.
Kyodo said the government is looking to deploy a missile with a range of 2,000 km by the early 2030s, and a hypersonic missile with a range of 3,000 km that can reach any location in North Korea and parts of China by 2035.
Last December, Japan unveiled its biggest military spending plan since World War II, worth $320 billion, to buy missiles capable of hitting China and to prepare the country for any potential conflict, as regional tensions and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fueled fears of war.