Australia, Japan boost defense ties in face of PRC incursions
The Associated Press
Australia and Japan will increase joint military exercises as the nations share concerns over the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) recent incursions into Japanese airspace and territorial waters.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defense Minister Minoru Kihara met for a regular summit with their Australian counterparts, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles, in Queenscliff, Australia, in September 2024.
They discussed greater security cooperation, shared support for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and concerns over the PRC’s increasingly aggressive territorial claims in the South China and East China seas, Wong said.
The ministers agreed on more engagement in air force exercises after F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters from both countries trained over Japan during Exercise Bushido Guardian 2023, Marles said.
In 2025, Australia will participate for the first time in Orient Shield, the largest annual field training exercise between the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force and the United States Army.
Australia and Japan also plan to involve the Japanese Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, a unit of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), in annual training rotations of U.S. Marines in the northern Australian city of Darwin.
The PRC’s assertive activity around Japanese waters and airspace has caused unease among Japanese defense officials, who are also concerned about growing cooperation between the Chinese and Russian air forces.
Japan lodged a formal protest through the Chinese embassy in Tokyo against what it called an incursion by a PRC military survey ship into its waters in late August 2024. Tokyo also protested days earlier after a PRC military aircraft briefly entered Japan’s southwestern airspace. It was the first time the JSDF detected a PRC military aircraft in the nation’s airspace.
“We have shared very strong concern over these incidents and, for the East China Sea and South China Sea, any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or by coercion, we have put forward our strong opposition,” Kihara said.
Marles said he and Wong expressed support “for Japanese sovereignty in that moment.”
“It really underlined our shared commitment to asserting the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific, in our neighborhood,” Marles said. “The countries of the region and indeed the world want to be in a world where disputes are resolved not by power and might but by reference to international law.”
