The Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, and his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, reworked a fifteen year old agreement on Saturday.
Le Monde
Australia and Japan signed a security pact on Saturday October 22 to counter the military rise of China. On a visit to Australia, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met his counterpart, Anthony Albanese, in Perth (Australia-Western) to reshape a fifteen year old agreement, written at a time when jihadist attacks and the proliferation of weapons represented the main concerns of the two parties.
“This historic declaration sends a strong signal to the region on our strategic alignment,” said Albanese, welcoming the pact signed between the two countries. Without directly citing China or North Korea, the Japanese Prime Minister described the response agreement to an “increasingly hard strategic environment”.
Australia had not received the visit of a Japanese Prime Minister since 2018. The two Pacific nations should focus on sharing the signals and geospatial information gleaned from electronic listening satellites (or Sigint ). None of the two countries currently have large foreign information networks, such as the American CIA or the French DGSE.
Military and energy cooperation
The pact is also considered an additional step towards Japan membership in the powerful alliance called “Five Eyes” in intelligence between Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and States -United. However, obstacles remain. In the past, closer cooperation has been hampered by longtime concerns about Tokyo’s ability to process sensitive confidential documents and to transmit them safely.
The Japanese and Australian Prime Ministers also undertook to strengthen their military and energy cooperation. Japan is an important Australian gas buyer and it has grown wide on the hydrogen energy produced in Australia.
The initial security pact between Tokyo and Canberra was signed in 2007, when Beijing was much weaker militarily and less assertive in his relations with the world. Since the coming to power of Xi Jinping, the Beijing army has become much stronger and its more aggressive posture. During the decade of reign of Mr. XI, China made its army one of the most powerful in the world and amassed a nuclear and ballistic arsenal.