Will Japan and Australia’s agreement counter China?
Australia and Japan agreed on Saturday to share more sensitive information and deepen military cooperation and signed a security pact aimed at countering China’s military buildup.
Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida and Anthony Albanese signed the accord in the Western Australian city of Perth, revising a 15-year-old agreement drafted when terrorism and arms proliferation were the main concerns.
“This historic statement sends a strong signal of our strategic direction in the region,” Albanese said, welcoming the “Joint Statement on Security Cooperation.”
As part of the deal, the two countries agreed that Australia’s northern armed forces would train together and “expand and strengthen defense and intelligence-sharing cooperation”, Australian officials said.
Japan does not have a foreign spy agency equivalent to the American CIA, the British MI6, the Russian FSB, or the much smaller Australian agency ASIO. But according to expert Bryce Wakefield, Australia and Japan have formidable signals and geospatial capabilities electronic interception, and high-tech satellites that provide invaluable intelligence on adversaries.
Wakefield, director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, said the deal could also have wider implications, offering Japan a model for accelerating intelligence links with countries like the UK. Some even see the agreement as another step towards Japan’s entry into the powerful Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance between Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.
It’s “a landmark event that Japan can share SIGINT with a foreign nation other than the United States,” said Ken Kotani, an expert in Japanese intelligence history at Nihon University.
True/fake representation of the people #China #US pic.twitter.com/zNTfmP2IlE
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