CNN
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The US and Japan introduced a big strengthening of their military relationship and improve of the US military’s power posture in the nation on Wednesday, together with the stationing of a newly redesignated Marine unit with superior intelligence, surveillance capabilities and the flexibility to fireplace anti-ship missiles, in accordance to two US officers briefed on the matter.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mentioned throughout a press convention with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa, and Japanese Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu, that the twelfth Marine Regiment, an artillery regiment, can be redesignated because the twelfth Marine Littoral Regiment.
“We’re replacing an artillery regiment with an outfit that’s, that’s more lethal, more agile, more capable,” he mentioned, including that the transfer would “bolster deterrence in the region and allow us to defend Japan and its people more effectively.”
The announcement sends a strong signal to China and got here as a part of a sequence of initiatives designed to underscore a fast acceleration of safety and intelligence ties between the international locations.
The officers met on Wednesday as a part of the annual US-Japan Security Consultative Committee assembly, days earlier than President Joe Biden plans to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on the White House.
The newly revamped Marine unit shall be based mostly on Okinawa and is meant to present a stand-in power that’s in a position to defend Japan and shortly reply to contingencies, US officers mentioned Wednesday. Okinawa is seen as key to the US military’s operations in the Pacific – in half due to its close proximity to Taiwan. It homes more than 25,000 US military personnel and greater than two dozen military installations. Roughly 70% of the US military bases in Japan are on Okinawa; one island inside the Okinawa Prefecture, Yonaguni, sits lower than 70 miles from Taiwan, in accordance to the Council on Foreign Relations.
It is likely one of the most vital changes to US military power posture in the area in years, one official mentioned, underscoring the Pentagon’s need to shift from the wars of the previous in the Middle East to the area of the longer term in the Indo-Pacific. The change comes as simulated war games from a distinguished Washington assume tank discovered that Japan, and Okinawa in explicit, would play a vital function in a military battle with China, offering the United States with ahead deployment and basing choices.
“I think it is fair to say that, in my view, 2023 is likely to stand as the most transformative year in US force posture in the region in a generation,” mentioned Ely Ratner, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, on the American Enterprise Institute final month.
The information follows the stand-up of the primary Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii final yr, in which the third Marine Regiment in Hawaii grew to become the third Marine Littoral Regiment – a key a part of the Marine Corps’ modernization effort outlined in the 2030 Force Design report from Gen. David Berger.
As the service has described them, the Marine Littoral Regiments are a “mobile, low-signature” unit in a position to conduct strikes, coordinate air and missile protection and assist floor warfare.
The Washington Post first reported the soon-to-be-announced adjustments.
In addition to the restructuring of Marines in the nation, the US and Japan introduced on Wednesday that they’re increasing their protection treaty to embody assaults to or from area amid rising concern in regards to the fast development of China’s area program and hypersonic weapons growth.
In November, China launched three astronauts to its practically accomplished area station as Beijing seemed to set up a long-term presence in area. China has additionally explored the far aspect of the moon and Mars.
The two allies introduced that Article V of the US-Japan Security Treaty, first signed in 1951, applies to assaults from or inside area, officers mentioned. In 2019, the US and Japan made it clear that the protection treaty applies to our on-line world and {that a} cyber assault might represent an armed assault below sure circumstances.
“We’re working to deepen our cooperation across every realm: Land, sea, air, and yes, space – cyber and outer,” Blinken mentioned Wednesday. “The outer space component of this is important security and prosperity of our alliance. We agree, as you’ve heard, that attacks to, from, or within space present a clear challenge, and we affirm that depending on the nature of those attacks this could lead to the invocation of Article V of our Japan-US security treaty.”
Blinken added that he and Yoshimasa would signal an area settlement later this week throughout a go to to NASA headquarters in Washington. A launch on Wednesday from NASA mentioned the settlement will “build on the nations’ commitment to the peaceful, transparent exploration of space.”
The US has watched carefully as China has quickly developed its hypersonic weapon methods, together with one missile in 2021 that circled the globe earlier than launching a hypersonic glider that struck its goal. It was a wake-up name for the United States, which has fallen behind China and Russia in superior hypersonic expertise.
The two international locations may also construct on their joint use of services in Japan and perform extra workouts on Japan’s southwest islands, a transfer certain to draw the ire of Beijing, given its proximity to Taiwan and even mainland China. US officers added that the US will briefly deploy MQ-9 Reaper drones to Japan for maritime surveillance of the East China Sea, in addition to launch a bilateral group to analyze and share the data.
The bulletins got here lower than a month after Japan unveiled a brand new nationwide safety plan that alerts the nation’s largest military buildup since World War II, doubling protection spending and veering from its pacifist structure in the face of rising threats from regional rivals, together with China.
China has been rising its naval and air forces in areas close to Japan whereas claiming the Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited Japanese-controlled chain in the East China Sea, as its sovereign territory.
In late December, Japan mentioned Chinese authorities vessels had been noticed in the contiguous zone across the Senkakus, referred to as the Diaoyus in China, 334 days in 2022, essentially the most since 2012 when Tokyo acquired among the islands from a non-public Japanese landowner, public broadcaster NHK reported. From December 22 to 25, Chinese authorities vessels spent nearly 73 consecutive hours in Japanese territorial waters off the islands, the longest such incursion since 2012, the NHK report mentioned.
China has additionally been upping its military strain on Taiwan, the self-governing island, whose safety Japanese leaders have mentioned is important to the safety of Japan itself. In August, that strain included Beijing firing 5 missiles that landed in Japan’s unique financial zone close to Taiwan in response to the go to of then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei.
Before the announcement of the elevated partnership between the US and Japan was even made public, Chinese authorities officers had been reacting to stories in Japanese media.
“US-Japan military cooperation should not harm the interests of any third party or undermine peace and stability in the region,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin mentioned at a daily press briefing Tuesday in Beijing.
A State Department official defined that the Ukraine warfare and strengthening of the China-Russia relationship have spurred the US and Japan to come to a sequence of recent agreements which were into consideration for a while.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sort of moved things on warp drive a little bit,” the official mentioned. “The relationship between Putin and Xi Jinping that we saw in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, that kind of showed, wait a minute, the Russians and the Chinese are working in new ways. We’re facing new challenges.”
And it’s not simply the US – Japan and Britain additionally introduced on Wednesday that the 2 international locations can be signing a “historic defense agreement” that will enable them to deploy forces in one another’s international locations.
The Reciprocal Access Agreement will enable each forces to plan military workouts and deployments on a bigger and extra advanced scale, making it the “most significant defense agreement between the two countries in more than a century,” in accordance to a press release on Wednesday from Downing Street.
The settlement nonetheless wants to be ratified by the respective parliaments earlier than taking impact. It shall be laid earlier than Japan’s Diet and the UK Parliament in the approaching weeks, in accordance to the assertion.
