Japan and Australia agreed on Sept. 5 to increase joint military drills, after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) increased not only its military presence in the region, but also military aggression against its neighbors in recent weeks.
The Chinese plane continued to circle near the Japanese islands for some time after it left Japanese airspace, The Japan Times reported. Days later, a Chinese survey ship breached Japanese waters.
Japan lodged diplomatic protests following both incidents.
On Sept. 5, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defense Minister Minoru Kihara met for a regular summit with their Australian counterparts, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defense Minister Richard Marles.
Wong told reporters that the parties discussed greater security cooperation and their concerns over peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, and the East China Sea due to the CCP’s increasingly aggressive territorial claims.
The CCP claims nearly all of these waters as its own, and has passed domestic laws to back these claims that conflict with international law.
“We have shared very strong concern over these incidents and, for the East China Sea and South China Sea, any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or by coercion, we have put forward our strong opposition [to],” Kihara told reporters through an interpreter.
Marles and Wong expressed support for Japanese sovereignty.
“It really underlined our shared commitment to asserting the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific, in our neighborhood,” Marles said. “The countries of the region and indeed the world want to be in a world where disputes are resolved not by power and might but by reference to international law.”
International law recognizes the 200 nautical miles off the coast of a nation as its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), while other waters are considered free, international waters. A 2016 ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague also rejected the CCP’s broad territorial claims as legally meritless.
The CCP has refused to recognize that ruling, asserting that it is protecting its territory within the law in connection with demonstrations of force, such as during recent clashes with Philippine ships in the Escoda Shoal, which the Pacific nation claims as its EEZ, and in Philippine airspace.
In June, the CCP brought into force a domestic law that it claims gives it the authority to detain foreigners who “trespass” into territory it claims as its own.
A major conflict in the South China Sea could block close to a third of the world’s trade.
Australia and Japan agreed to increase their joint air force training exercises. They will also join in annual exercises with the U.S. military.
Next year, Australia will join for the first time in Orient Shield, the largest annual field training exercise between the U.S. Army and the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. A Japanese marine unit, the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, will also join the U.S. Marines in annual training rotations in Darwin, Australia.
