US and Japan cosy up to counter China
America and Japan are “planning the biggest upgrade to their security alliance” since their 1960 mutual defence treaty, in a move to “counter” an expansionist China, say Demetri Sevastopulo and Kana Inagaki in the Financial Times.
President Joe Biden and prime minister Fumio Kishida will announce details of the plan when Kishida visits the White House on 10 April. Insiders say the allies want to restructure the US military command in Japan to strengthen cooperation in response to China’s increasing aggression, particularly towards Taiwan.
Biden signalled his wish to “tilt the focus of US foreign policy towards the Asia-Pacific region” in 2021, when he took office, says Alistair Dawber in The Times. The move to increase operational planning and military exercises between the two allies is also happening at a time when Japan is rapidly increasing its defence spending. In January, it signed a deal to buy US Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Models for the updated alliance are said to include the creation of a new US military joint task force that would be attached to the US Pacific Fleet, says the Financial Times. Over time, this task force, which would include different parts of the US military, would shift to Japan.
Experts have condemned the move as having the “potential to ruin the hard-won and decades-long peace and stability in East Asia”, says China’s The Global Times. According to military expert Zhang Junshe, Washington is up to its “old tricks”, using Taiwan as an “excuse” and attempting, recklessly, to “interfere in China’s internal affairs”.
He added that Japan, which has “dramatically increased” its defence budget for 12 years in a row, “dreams of becoming an influential political and military power” and wants to rid itself of the restraints of the pacifist constitution imposed by the Americans after World War II.