“We see Japan taking
an ever increasing role in some of the areas of conflict, some of the
challenging environments,” Bishop said in a phone interview from Tokyo
on Thursday.
Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking to reinterpret the country’s pacifist
Constitution to allow it to defend allies, as part of a broader push for
influence in the region as China asserts itself as an economic and
military power.
Japan and China are
embroiled in a dispute over islands in the East China Sea and China is
pressing its claims to a large part of the South China Sea, a major
trade route.
Japan has a right to
collective self-defense, Bishop said after concluding “two-plus-two”
meetings with Defense Minister David Johnston and her Japanese
counterparts, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Defense Minister
Itsunori Onodera.
“We support Japan’s
desire to achieve peace and security for the long term in our region,”
she said. “We welcome Japan’s efforts to play an even greater role in
regional affairs and global affairs.”
Abe, who has increased
defense spending two years in a row, used the Shangri-La security forum
in Singapore last month to outline his efforts to toughen Japan’s
defense posture and pledged to aid Southeast Asian nations in their
disputes with China over territory.
He framed Japan’s
plans for a more active contribution to security as the path for “new
Japanese.” That prompted Chinese Lt. Gen. Wang Guanzhong to call Abe’s
comments provocative.
Chinese fighter jets
on Wednesday flew “abnormally close” to Japanese military surveillance
planes in the East China Sea, the second incident in less than a month,
Japan’s Ministry of Defense said. Ships and planes from the countries
have tailed one another around the islands known as Senkaku in Japanese
and Diaoyu in Chinese since Japan bought three of them from a private
owner in 2012.
While China is
committed to a peaceful rise in power in the Asia-Pacific, a strong US
presence in the region is vital to prosperity and stability, Bishop
said.
“Our point in all of
our discussions, whether it be with the United States or Japan or China
or any of the Asean countries, is that there must be a peaceful
resolution to these territorial claims,” Bishop said, referring to the
10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. “The key to managing
disputes in the South China Sea is to ensure that the Asean countries
continue to engage in negotiations for a code of conduct.”
Australia is also
seeking to build its defense capacity. The world’s 12th-largest economy
must balance its interests between the US—a strategic ally that has
Marines based in the northern Australian city of Darwin—and top trading
partner China, which Bishop criticized last year for proclaiming an air
defense identification zone over the East China Sea.
Australia, which is in
talks to potentially use submarine technology from Japan, on Wednesday
reached a “substantial conclusion” to negotiations with Kishida and
Onodera in their bid for cooperation in sharing defense equipment and
technology, the nations said in a joint statement. Further details are
expected next month when Abe addresses the Australian parliament in
Canberra, Bishop said on Thursday.
source: Bloomberg News / Business Mirror
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