By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s visit to Tokyo underscored the US position that Japan is crucial to Washington’s plans to counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
Hegseth emphasized that the Pentagon would continue with previously announced plans to upgrade US Forces Command to a joint force headquarters, in part by adding staff to increase cooperation with Japanese forces.
“Our job at the Defense Department, with our friends and on the military side, is to build an alliance so robust that both the reality and the perception of deterrence is real and ongoing,” Hegseth said at a news conference with Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani. “So that the Communist Chinese don’t take the aggressive actions that some have contemplated they will.”
Nakatani told reporters that “Japan’s position remains the same, that peace and stability across Taiwan Strait is important for Japan’s national security and for the stability across the international community.”
He said that he and Hegseth agreed to speed up efforts to start co-production of the AMRAAM (advanced mid-range air-to-air missile). Nakatani also wants to explore where the two countries also could co-produce the SM-6 surface to air missile.
Meanwhile, Hegseth wants American forces for greater access to Japan’s southwest islands, which at their closest are less than 70 miles from Taiwan. Japan’s Self-Defense Forces already have established garrisons on those islands.
(On Monday, China responded by saying that any military agreement between the US and Japan should not target a third country nor endanger regional peace. A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry accused the US of “inciting certain countries to be the cannon fodder of US supremacy.”)
There are roughly 53,000 American service members based in Japan, the largest US overseas military presence. Japan pays about $1.4 billion a year to the US to help offset the costs. Meanwhile, Tokyo is raising the amount of money is spends on defense to about two percent of gross domestic product, twice as much as in 2022.
