Richard Marles, Penny Wong to hold high-level Tokyo talks

Richard Marles and Penny Wong will visit Tokyo in December, with talks focused on strengthening defence and technology co-operation to counter growing Chinese threats.

Penny Wong, left, and Richard Marles, right, will meet with Japanese officials in December. Picture: Getty Images

Richard Marles and Penny Wong will visit Tokyo in December for high-level talks with their Japanese counterparts focused on strengthening defence and technology co-operation to counter growing Chinese threats.

The Australian can reveal the Defence and Foreign ministers will stop in Japan for the annual “2+2” meeting on their way home from AUSMIN talks and a first-ever meeting of AUKUS defence ministers in Washington DC.

The ministers will use major speeches during the trip to ­emphasise the benefits of the Australia-US alliance to the broader Indo-Pacific region amid sharper strategic competition with Beijing.

The Japan visit comes amid a growing push by Tokyo to play a role in key defence technology projects under the trilateral AUKUS alliance between Australia, the US and the UK.

Mr Marles in Canberra on Tuesday said there was an “incredible sense of shared vision” between the AUKUS allies as they worked towards finalising a design for Australia’s planned ­nuclear submarines.

He also talked up the wider aspects of the AUKUS partnership, including a plan to develop small robot submarines that he described as “the way of the future”.

Mr Marles said the drone subs would be “more expendable … but more numerous” than manned submarines, offering “an opportunity to have a much greater awareness over a much longer distance, as well as delivering both undersea and surface military effects”.

He said hypersonic missiles and counter-hypersonic technologies, joint data centres, artificial intelligence and quantum computing were also key avenues for co-operation.

Australia and Japan are de facto allies, with Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently pledging bilateral co-operation on regional contingencies that threaten the nations’ sovereignty and regional security interests.

Sources said the talks with Japanese Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi would pick up where the Prime Minister and Mr Kishida left off at their October meeting in Perth.

The leaders’ meeting produced a new joint security declaration vowing to deepen and expand co-operation to respond to the region’s most pressing security challenges.

Next month’s “2+2” will focus on delivering closer defence interoperability between Australian and Japanese forces through expanded joint exercises, and deeper bilateral co-operation on space and cyber capabilities.

The ministers will also discuss closer technology partnerships between the countries, including the need to strengthen critical supply chain co-operation.

Japan ambassador to Australia Shingo Yamagami earlier this month said Australia was Japan’s closest ally after the US, and hoped to become involved in “specific projects” under the AUKUS framework.