Australia and Japan sign new defence deal

Japan and Australia have signed a “landmark” defence deal in the face of China’s rising military might.

The Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), a treaty to ease restrictions on the movement of weapons and supplies for joint training and disaster relief operations, is the latest regional security pact aimed at countering China’s military adventurism.

The agreement, signed in a virtual summit between prime ministers Fumio Kishida and Scott Morrison, was “a landmark instrument which will elevate security co-operation between the nations to new heights”, the Japanese leader said.

Morrison said signing the RAA was a “pivotal moment for Australia and Japan” that would form an important part of the two countries’ response to “the uncertainty we now face”.

The deal comes in the wake of the nuclear-powered submarine deal, called Aukus, between Australia, Britain and the US, and deepening of defence ties between the UK and Japan.

Alessio Patalano, professor of east Asian strategy at King’s College London, said the RAA deal supported a wider and more robust co-operation on defence. “Aukus is very much Australia’s way of getting the UK and US to co-operate with them on science and technology,” he said.

“RAA is what [ Japan and Australia] need to start training to bring capabilities together to be useful in the future.”

Unlike Nato, there is little commonality across partner nations in Asia to let military systems work alongside each other. The RAA deal will allow political discussions about how to deepen military co-operation in the region.

“That’s why it’s so important,” Patalano said. “It creates a more complex [security] web for the Chinese to have to deal with but there’s not much they can do about it.”

Concerns over China’s military posture in the South China Sea and aggression towards Taiwan have led Japan to move away from its post-war constitutional constraints on the use of force.