Australia, the United States and Japan have sent a defiant message to China by putting their increasingly close partnership on an alliance-style footing and integrating Japanese troops into annual joint Top End rotations for the first time.
In what could be the last visit to Australia by a senior Biden administration official before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Darwin for a farewell trilateral meeting with Defence Minister Richard Marles and Japanese Defence Minister Nakatani Gen on Sunday.
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, Director-General of the Japan Defence Agency Nakatani Gen, and Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles in Darwin on Sunday.Credit: Kym Smith/Department of Defence
The choice of Darwin sent a powerful signal about the dramatic improvement in relations between the three nations given the city was bombed by Japanese forces during World War II, with Nakatani hailing Australia as a “quasi ally”.
The defence ministers expressed “serious concern about destabilising actions in the East and South China Seas, including dangerous conduct by the People’s Republic of China” in a joint statement that warned Beijing against trying to seize control of the self-governing island of Taiwan.
“We reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion,” the defence ministers said.
Japan’s former top diplomat in Australia, Shingo Yamagami, accused Anthony Albanese of being “weak and meek” on China in an interview with this masthead before the meeting, but the government insists it has restored normal trade ties with Beijing without sacrificing Australia’s national interests.
With the defence community in Washington abuzz about Trump’s choice of Pete Hegseth to succeed Austin as Defence Secretary, Marles said he was looking forward to getting to know the outspoken “anti-woke” Fox News host.
“Everything that I’ve heard about Pete Hegseth since his name became public in the context of becoming the Secretary of Defence has been positive,” Marles said of the former soldier, who has controversially called for women to be banned from combat roles and faces accusations of not being sufficiently qualified to lead the Pentagon.
It was revealed on Sunday that Hegseth paid a settlement to woman who accused him of sexual assault, but he insists the encounter was consensual.
While stating that it was Trump’s prerogative to choose his defence secretary, Austin stressed the enormous responsibility of the role, saying that it involves making “life-and-death decisions on a near daily basis” and oversight of 2.7 million military personnel.
Austin also sought to reassure Australians about the future of AUKUS, saying he was confident that US shipyards could sufficiently boost production levels to allow the sale of at least three Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the 2030s.
“We recognise that this is a generational capability that will make a significant difference in promoting security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.
He added: “We expect that Japan will join AUKUS pillar II [which involves collaboration on advanced military technologies] at some point in the not-too-distant future.”
Nakatani said Japan was facing an “extremely severe” strategic environment, with a missile attack on the nation from a hostile country such as North Korea being a “real possibility”.
Under the set of agreements struck on Sunday, Japan’s amphibious rapid deployment brigade will begin integrating hundreds of troops with the US Marines and Australian forces in Darwin annually from next year.
Marles said the move sent “a very important statement to the region and to the world about the commitment that our three countries have in working with each other”.
He added that the three nations were “looking at every opportunity that we can find to participate in each other’s exercises within the region”.
Australian troops will also be invited to join the Japan-United States Bilateral Information Analysis Cell, which involves the joint processing of military intelligence data.
The three nations also announced a new commitment to consult each other on regional security issues and contingencies including natural disasters and military conflagrations.
While not constituting a legally binding treaty, it represents a significant deepening of the three-way partnership.
Marles said the compact “provides a substance and a structure to the trilateral meeting of our three countries which has not been there before, and it represents the ambition that all of us have about taking this architecture of our three countries even further”.
Jennifer Parker, a military expert at the Australian National University, said Sunday’s announcements represented the culmination of a “remarkable evolution” in Australia-Japan defence ties over the past decade.
Australia, Japan, the US and India – the four members of the Quad partnership – also announced they would boost the sharing of maritime surveillance information.
“Taken together, this is major progress, and it will help ensure a more stable and prosperous region,” Austin said.
Marles confirmed the Mogami-class warship manufactured by Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries had been shortlisted to win a contract to build 11 general-purpose frigates for the Australian navy.
Mitsubishi is competing against Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems after bids by Spain’s Navantia and South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding failed to make the final cut.
Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said it was clear that “Australia and Japan now consider each other to be their second-closest defence partners”.
“This is useful strategic insurance against a US that turns inwards under Trump,” he said.
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