CEBU, Philippines: The United States and Japan have agreed to establish a Japanese facility for the joint production of advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, the Japanese defense chief said late Wednesday. It is the latest move by the allies, which have repeatedly expressed alarm over China\u2019s growing aggression in Asia.<\/p>\n
Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi made the announcement in a news conference Wednesday night in the central province of Cebu, where he met US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the sidelines of an annual meeting of Southeast Asian defense chiefs and their major Asian and Western counterparts.<\/p>\n
The annual meetings aim to avert a major regional conflict and strengthen defense cooperation. On the sidelines of the meetings, however, the US and China and their allies have often traded criticisms.<\/p>\n
The missiles that will be produced as part of a joint effort called \u201cOperation Supercharge\u201d are \u201cessential for the F-35,\u201d Koizumi said, without elaborating or providing other details of the agreement. The US-made F-35 fighter jets are one of the world\u2019s most advanced aircraft and are also used by the Japanese military.<\/p>\n
During his brief meeting with Hegseth in Cebu, Koizumi said he \u201cshared a sense of crisis \u2026 regarding the increasingly severe regional situation and we agreed to strengthen the deterrence and response capabilities of the Japan-US alliance with greater speed and intensity than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe reaffirmed the importance of a free and open international order based on the rule of law, which rejects any attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo through the use of force, coercion or other means,\u201d Koizumi said. He cautiously added that their discussions were not directed at any specific country.<\/p>\n
Hegseth renewed the Trump administration\u2019s repeated assurances of commitment to help deter aggression in the region in a separate meeting on Wednesday with ASEAN defense ministers, who were led by the host, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. Like Koizumi, Hegseth did not mention China by name in expressing his security concerns in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe approach we\u2019re taking, we describe as strong, quiet and clear,\u201d Hegseth told the ASEAN defense chiefs. \u201cStrong enough to deter coercion and aggression, quiet enough to avoid needless escalation or public theatrics to let our actions speak for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
His message is \u201cclear enough that our friends, our partners and potential adversaries understand precisely where the United States stands and that we will defend our interests and the interests of our allies and partners,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n
Hegseth has assured the Philippines, the oldest treaty ally of Washington in Asia, that the Trump administration will build a robust deterrence against China\u2019s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Beijing claims the busy waterway, a key global trade route, virtually in its entirety.<\/p>\n
The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei, all ASEAN member states, along with Taiwan, also have overlapping claims in the South China Sea. Confrontations have particularly escalated between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy vessels in disputed shoals and outlying waters.<\/p>\n
Washington has warned that it\u2019s obligated to defend the Philippines if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n
Beijing and Tokyo have a separate dispute over tiny Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea, with both sides often accusing the other of infringing on their maritime territory.Associated Press journalists Aaron Favila in Cebu, Philippines and Haruka Nuga in Tokyo contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CEBU, Philippines: The United States and Japan have agreed to establish a Japanese facility for the joint production of advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, the Japanese defense chief said late Wednesday. It is the latest move by the allies, which have repeatedly expressed alarm over China\u2019s growing aggression in Asia. Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi made …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105074,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105059\/revisions\/105074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}