International Courant
JAPAN – 23/02/2023: A Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopter from the US Navy Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM-51, also referred to as the Conflict Lords), flies close to the Naval Air Facility Atsugi air base.
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The USA will announce a sweeping overhaul of its navy command construction in Japan and different measures to strengthen protection ties with its Asian ally throughout high-level safety talks in Tokyo on Sunday, a U.S. official mentioned.
The reform comes as Tokyo plans to ascertain a brand new joint headquarters by March to supervise the armed forces, a transfer that can enable it to work extra intently with Washington to deal with rising regional threats from China and North Korea.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin are scheduled to carry talks with Japanese International Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Protection Minister Minoru Kihara in a while Sunday.
“Secretary Austin plans to announce that the US intends to remodel U.S. forces in Japan right into a joint headquarters, reporting to the commander of U.S. INDOPACOM,” the U.S. official mentioned at a briefing forward of the talks.
The command can be led by a three-star common, the official mentioned, reasonably than the four-star rank Japan had requested.
For the primary time, the US-Japan ministerial talks will even handle “prolonged deterrence,” a time period used to explain the US dedication to make use of its nuclear weapons to discourage assaults on allies.
Japan supplies the US with a base from which to undertaking its navy energy in Asia. It has 54,000 American troops, lots of of American plane and Washington’s solely forward-deployed service strike group.
Spurred on by China’s rising navy energy and common missile checks by nuclear-armed North Korea, Japan is abandoning many years of postwar pacifism. In 2022, it unveiled a plan to double protection spending to 2% of gross home product.
Austin and Kihara additionally met their South Korean counterpart Shin Received-sik for talks in Tokyo on Sunday, the place they signed an settlement to “institutionalize” trilateral cooperation via initiatives reminiscent of real-time sharing of North Korean missile warning information and joint navy workouts.
The Biden administration is pushing for nearer cooperation between Tokyo and Seoul, which has beforehand been hampered by tense relations relationship again to Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945.
“This memorandum strengthens cooperation between Japan, the US and South Korea and ensures that our partnership is unwavering irrespective of how the worldwide scenario modifications,” Kihara instructed reporters after the assembly.
Washington additionally needs to faucet Japanese trade to ease strain on U.S. protection corporations, that are dealing with excessive demand amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Center East.
Final month, Tokyo and Washington opened negotiations on nearer cooperation within the protection trade underneath the US-Japan Discussion board on Protection Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment, established in April by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Joe Biden.
After Tokyo, Blinken and Austin will maintain safety talks with one other ally, the Philippines, because the Biden administration seeks to counter an more and more brazen China.
Blinken met his Chinese language counterpart Wang Yi in Laos on Saturday and reiterated that Washington and its companions wish to preserve a “free and open Indo-Pacific area,” in response to a US report of the assembly.
US publicizes reform of navy command in Japan, official says
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