Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles announced on Saturday that defense ministers from Australia, Japan, and the United States would meet in Darwin, Australia on Sunday to deepen their military cooperation.
According to a statement from Marles’ office, the meeting will involve discussions on cooperation in exercises, operations, technology, and defense industries.
This meeting, to be held in the capital of Australia’s Northern Territory, will mark the 14th such trilateral meeting among the US, Japan, and Australia, and the first to be hosted in Australia.
The ministers will also hold bilateral talks, emphasizing the importance of trilateral defense cooperation as a key pillar of regional security, aimed at maintaining stability, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
Topics of discussion at the meeting may include the situation in the Taiwan Strait and how to address North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile tests. The three countries are expected to issue a joint statement confirming their commitment to enhancing cooperation in the security domain and keeping an eye on China’s expanding maritime activities.
Ahead of his visit to Australia, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi stated that Japan, the US, and Australia share common values and aspirations, pledging to collaborate on understanding the regional situation and discussing strategies moving forward.
Marles expressed his honor in welcoming Minister Kishi and Secretary Austin for the first trilateral defense ministers’ meeting hosted in Australia, highlighting the partnership’s foundation on shared values, deep trust, and unwavering commitment to regional stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.
The last US-Japan-Australia defense ministers’ meeting was held in Singapore in June this year, where the three nations focused on discussing military threats from China, expressing serious concerns about the security situation in the East China Sea and opposing any destabilizing and coercive unilateral actions there.
In the same month, Japan lodged a protest against China, accusing Chinese vessels of carrying weapons suspected to be cannons into Japan’s territorial waters in the East China Sea, which surround the disputed islands known as the Senkaku Islands in Tokyo and the Diaoyu Islands in Beijing.