This content was first published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
The United States, the UK, and Australia’s efforts to establish a second defense business base across their nations will help ease military manufacturing backlogs, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said in Washington on Monday.
Rahm Emanuel, the former president of Chicago who has served as America’s best minister in Tokyo since March 2022, said Japan’s recent , overturning , of laws banning the import of lethal weapons put the country in a unique position to support the U. S. security industry.
Emanuel said that the United States ‘ world military commitments were outweighing its commercial power back of a explore by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and a multilateral summit with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.
” This is not breaking reports”, he said. Our military and business skills are not up to the demands and pledges we have.
The ambassador claimed that the subsequent lifting of the Tokyo weapons-export ban “opens up the industrial capability of Japan as part of a answer” in a way that was impossible with allies in” Europe or any other country” with less developed commercial capacities.
As part of their AUKUS security pact, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia are currently , working toward , the development of a” flawless” defence industrial base across their three states, as the United States struggles to chip away at production bottlenecks.
Emanuel said in a , Wall Street Journal , op- ed , last week Japan would this week be revealed as the first external “partner” to that effort.
The defense ministers of the United States, the UK, and Australia both released a joint statement on Monday, which stated that Japan was in the process of announcing its membership in some capacity.
We are considering cooperation with Japan on AUKUS Pillar II advanced capability projects, it said, referring to the official name for the single industrial base and acknowledging Japan’s strengths and its close bilateral defense partnerships with all three countries.
Diplomatic triangulation
The efforts come as tensions escalate in the South China Sea, with Chinese coast guard ships deploying water cannons and Philippine Navy vessels attempting to supply a naval station at the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, which Beijing claims as its sovereign territory.
Ships and aircraft from the Philippines, the United States, Japan and Australia over the weekend carried out , military exercises , in the South China Sea ahead of this week’s high- profile meetings in Washington.
On Wednesday, Kishida, Marcos, and Biden are scheduled to meet in what is billed as the first-ever trilateral meeting between the three countries, followed by a meeting with the United States President Joe Biden.
American officials said that Biden would likely “express concerns” about the situation around the Second Thomas Shoal during the meetings, and remind Beijing that the Philippines is a key American ally, according to , a report , by the , Financial Times , that quoted a senior U. S. official.
” China is underestimating the potential for escalation. We’ve tried to make that clear in a series of conversations”, the official said. Our mutual defense agreement includes ships and sailors from the Philippines.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing was “gravely concerned” by the growing cooperation of U. S. allies in the Indo- Pacific, which she said was” stoking bloc confrontation” . ,
At a press briefing on Monday, Mao stated that the U.S., the U.K., and Australia have consistently sent signals of AUKUS expansion, co-opting some nations to join, and escalating an arms race in the Asia-Pacific to the detriment of peace and stability in the region.
