By Simon Lewis and Tim Kelly
TOKYO (Reuters) – The United States will unveil a major revamp of its military command structure in Japan and other measures to deepen defence ties with its Asian ally at high-level security talks in Tokyo on Sunday, a U.S. official said.
The overhaul comes as Tokyo looks to establish a new joint headquarters to oversee its armed forces by March to coordinate better with Washington on growing regional threats they see emanating from China and North Korea.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin will hold talks with their Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and Defence Minister Minoru Kihara later on Sunday.
“Secretary Austin plans to announce that the United States intends to reconstitute U.S. Forces Japan as a Joint Force Headquarters, reporting to the commander of U.S. INDOPACOM,” the U.S. official told a briefing ahead of the talks.
The command will be headed by a three-star general, the official said, not the four-star rank that Japan had requested.
For the first time, the ministerial talks between the U.S. and Japan will also cover “extended deterrence”, a term used to describe the U.S. commitment to use its nuclear forces to deter attacks on allies.
Japan provides a base for the U.S. to project its military power in Asia, hosting 54,000 American troops, hundreds of U.S. aircraft and Washington’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier strike group.
Prompted by China’s growing military might and regular missile tests by nuclear-armed North Korea, Japan is stepping back from decades of postwar pacifism. In 2022 it unveiled a plan to double defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product.
Austin and Kihara also met their South Korean counterpart, Shin Won-sik, for talks in Tokyo on Sunday where they signed an agreement to “institutionalise” trilateral cooperation via efforts like real-time sharing of North Korean missile warning data and joint military exercises.
The Biden administration has been pushing for deeper cooperation between Tokyo and Seoul, which have previously been hindered by strained relations dating back to Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of Korea.
“This memorandum, strengthens the cooperation between Japan, the United States and South Korea, making our partnership unshakable no matter how the international situation changes,” Kihara told reporters after the meeting.
Washington also wants to tap Japanese industry to help ease pressure on U.S. defence companies stretched by demand generated by conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Last month, Tokyo and Washington opened talks on deeper defence industry collaboration under the U.S.-Japan Forum on Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment established in April by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Joe Biden.
After Tokyo, Blinken and Austin will hold security talks with another ally, the Philippines, as the Biden administration seeks to counter an increasingly bold China.
Blinken met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Laos on Saturday and repeated that Washington and its partners want to maintain a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” according to a U.S. readout of the meeting.
(Reporting by Simon Lewis in Tokyo; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington and Tim Kelly in Tokyo; Writing by John Geddie; Editing by William Mallard and Michael Perry)
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