Japan, Aust vow to work closely with US
>> SYDNEY: Japan and Australia will continue to work in close coordination with the United States after the inauguration this week of president-elect Donald Trump, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday after bilateral talks in Sydney.
According to a joint press statement, Mr Abe and Mr Turnbull affirmed that their countries’ respective alliances with the US “remain as relevant and important today as they have been for over six decades”.
“We will work closely with the coming administration, as we have been, to advance the region’s interests and our shared goals,” Mr Turnbull said at a joint news appearance after the summit.
Mr Abe said he and Mr Turnbull had “confirmed our intention to solidly coordinate with the incoming Trump administration”.
According to the statement, Japan and Australia will “continue to work proactively, alongside the US and other like-minded countries, including India, to maintain the rules-based international order and support a peaceful and stable Indo-Pacific region”.
At a news conference in New York on Wednesday, Mr Trump named Japan, alongside China and Russia, as a country he said will “respect [the US] far more” than under past administrations.
Mr Abe and Mr Turnbull also reaffirmed their commitment to free trade, including the early entry into force of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement, which Mr Trump has pledged to dump.
Japan and Australia are among the 12 Pacific Rim nations that signed the TPP in February last year. The pact needs US ratification to come into force, meaning Mr Trump will effectively kill the pact in its current form if he sticks to his commitment to pull out of it as soon as he takes office next week.
Mr Abe said he and Mr Turnbull also agreed to work together toward the prompt conclusion of negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, another Asia-Pacific mega-pact that — unlike the TPP — excludes the US but includes China.
Mr Abe also said he and Mr Turnbull agreed to enhance their coordination in addressing issues involved with the South China Sea. Without mentioning China by name, the leaders appeared to caution the country over its expansionary activities in the sea, where it has laid sweeping territorial claims.
According to the joint statement, the leaders “urged all parties to exercise selfrestraint, and to avoid actions that would escalate tensions, including the militarisation of outposts in the South China Sea”.
They reiterated their opposition to “any unilateral or coercive actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions in the East China Sea”, in an apparent swipe at Chinese ships’ intrusion into Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China.
“It is more necessary than ever before for Japan and Australia, as special strategic partners, to play a leading role for regional peace and prosperity, as we both share common values such as freedom, rule of law and democracy,” Mr Abe said.
“We’ve confirmed our commitment to the rule of law, free trade, open markets in our region — the foundation upon which our prosperity, and that of billions of other people in our region, depends,” Mr Turnbull said.
Following the leaders’ talks, Japan and Australia signed a revised bilateral defence logistics cooperation pact, under which Japan’s Self-Defence Forces will now be able to supply ammunition to the Australian military.
The provision of weapons and ammunition was excluded from the past version of the acquisition and cross-servicing agreement, or ACSA, which came into force in January 2013.
The pact enables the defence forces to share certain supplies during UN peacekeeping operations, international relief operations and joint exercises.
The leaders also said they expect to conclude negotiations as soon as this year on a reciprocal access agreement, which Mr Turnbull said would “make it easier for our respective defence forces to conduct joint visits and exercises”.