CEBU, Philippines — The US and Japan have agreed to establish a Japanese facility for the joint production of advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, the Japanese defence chief said late Wednesday (Oct 28). It is the latest move by the allies, which have repeatedly expressed alarm over China's growing assertiveness in Asia.
Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi made the announcement in a news conference Wednesday night in the Philippine central province of Cebu, where he met US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on the sidelines of an annual meeting of Southeast Asian defence chiefs and their major Asian and Western counterparts.
The annual meetings aim to avert a major regional conflict and strengthen defence co-operation. On the sidelines of the meetings, however, the US and China and their allies have often traded criticisms.
The missiles that will be produced as part of a joint effort called "Operation Supercharge" are "essential for the F-35", Koizumi said, without elaborating or providing other details of the agreement. The US-made F-35 fighter jets are one of the world's most advanced aircraft and are also used by the Japanese military.
During his brief meeting with Hegseth in Cebu, Koizumi said he "shared a sense of crisis … 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".
"We 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," Koizumi said. He cautiously added that their discussions were not directed at any specific country.
Hegseth renewed the Trump administration's repeated assurances of commitment to help deter aggression in the region in a separate meeting on Wednesday with ASEAN defence ministers, who were led by the host, Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. Like Koizumi, Hegseth did not mention China by name in expressing his security concerns in the region.
"The approach we're taking, we describe as strong, quiet and clear," Hegseth told the ASEAN defence chiefs. "Strong enough to deter coercion and aggression, quiet enough to avoid needless escalation or public theatrics to let our actions speak for themselves."
His message is "clear 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," Hegseth said.
Hegseth has assured the Philippines, the oldest treaty ally of Washington in Asia, that the Trump administration will build a robust deterrence against China's increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Beijing claims the busy waterway, a key global trade route, virtually in its entirety.
Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said his country's forces, along with allies like the US, will press on with efforts to defend the rule of law despite China's increasing assertiveness, including in the South China Sea. Australia protested last year after a Chinese J-16 fighter aircraft released flares and passed within 30 metres of an Australian P-8 Poseidon surveillance jet over the disputed waters.
"That doesn't deter us from doing what we need to do and that's essentially asserting the rules-based order here in the end of the Pacific," Marles told The Associated Press in Cebu on Wednesday. "Freedom of navigation on the high seas is profoundly important for Australia."
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.
Washington has warned that it's obligated to defend the Philippines if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
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.
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