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Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko prepare to leave Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. Kishida began a two-day stopover in the Philippines on Friday, where he is expected to announce a security aid package. and upcoming negotiations for a defense pact aimed at strengthening Tokyo’s alliances in the face of China’s alarming assertiveness in the region.
MANILA>> The leaders of Japan and the Philippines agreed on Friday to begin negotiations on a key defense deal that would allow their troops to enter each other’s territory for joint military exercises. The move is part of efforts for their alliance in the face of China’s war. alarming assertiveness in the region.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, during a two-day stay in Manila, also announced, following discussions with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. , that a coastal surveillance radar would be donated to the Philippines through a grant. The country is the largest beneficiary of a recent Japanese security assistance program for allied armies in the region.
Additional Japanese patrol boats, defense apparatus and radars will be provided to bolster the Philippines’ ability to act at sea, Kishida said. In recent years, Japan has provided a dozen patrol boats to the Philippines, which now uses them extensively to protect its territory. interests in the disputed South China Sea.
Japan has had a longstanding territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea. There has been a series of tense confrontations, meanwhile, between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships in the disputed South China Sea.
Two weeks ago, China’s ships separately blocked then hit a Philippine coast guard vessel and a supply boat near the disputed Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Japan immediately expressed its strong support to the Philippines and the United States renewed its warning that it’s obligated to defend its treaty ally if Filipino forces come under an armed attack in the contested waters.
“We shared serious concerns about the situation in the East China Sea and the South China Sea and that attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force is unacceptable,” Kishida said, through a translator, in a televised news conference with Marcos on Friday night.
Marcos said the proposed defense pact to be negotiated through the Philippines with Japan, called the Reciprocal Access Agreement, would gain advantages “both for our defense and military corps and for the maintenance of peace and stability in our region. “
On Saturday, Kishida will become the first Japanese prime minister to participate in a joint consultation of the Philippine Congress, underscoring how ties between Asian nations have been reshaped since Japan’s brutal profession in the Philippines in World War II.
He is scheduled to conduct a mission in the Japanese-funded Manila subway on Saturday and board one of the 12 Japanese-built Coast Guard patrol boats docked in Manila before departing for Malaysia.
“We expect the speech from a leader of a country that is a trading partner, a security ally, a lender in calamity and an investor in the progress of the Philippines,” said Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.
Kishida’s government in December unveiled plans to bolster its security and defense — its counterattack capability — in a fundamental shift from the country’s post-World War II precept of self-defense.
Under the new strategy, Japan will use its massively growing aid to support efforts across poorer countries such as the Philippines to develop their security and security functions at sea as China deploys its military might in the region.
Kishida said he and Marcos Jr. agreed on efforts to establish tripartite security ties between Japan, the United States and the Philippines.
They are consistent with Marcos Jr. ‘s push to bolster his country’s external defense after a series of tense clashes between the coast guard and Chinese and Philippine military vessels in the disputed South China Sea.
President Joe Biden also has a set of alliances in the region to further counter China’s assertiveness.
The reciprocal agreement to be negotiated through Japan and the Philippines would allow for the deployment of Japanese and Filipino troops for military exercises and other security activities that could serve as a deterrent to aggression in the region, adding joint patrols in the South China Sea.
If finalized, the deal would be the biggest strengthening of the Japan-Philippines alliance in decades.
Yamaguchi contributed to this report: Associated Press Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.
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