National security advisers for the US, Japan and South Korea on Thursday discussed maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait and coordination over the East China and South China seas, the White House said in a statement.
They discussed North Korea’s “illicit nuclear and missile programs and most recent provocations, and identified next steps to strengthen their cooperation,” it said.
The statement came shortly before South Korea’s military said that it had launched a ballistic missile after Pyongyang issued a protest against live-fire drills conducted by South Korea and the US.
Photo: REUTERS
“Our trilateral partnership is now stronger and has more potential than ever before,” the US statement said.
Technology, energy security and “countering economic coercion,” were also discussed ahead of a summit with the three nation’s leaders hosted by US President Joe Biden in coming months, the White House added.
On China, the officials “discussed opportunities for coordination in the East China Sea and South China Sea, and emphasized the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” it said.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, along with Japanese National Security Secretariat Director-General Takeo Akiba and Philippine Secretary of the Interior Eduardo Ano, also held a trilateral meeting in Tokyo yesterday.
The three discussed combined maritime activities including multilateral joint naval exercises in the Indo-Pacific region, following on from the first joint training operation among the three countries’ coast guards earlier this month.
Japan’s military aid for the Philippines would secure sea approaches to help safeguard Taiwan’s western flank, officials said, deepening security ties that could bring Japanese forces back there for the first time since World War II.
As it steps back from decades of pacifism, Tokyo worries that the Philippines is a weak link in an island chain stretching from the Japanese archipelago to Indonesia through which ships must pass going to or from the Pacific Ocean.
Chief among the Japanese military’s concerns is a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan that could spark a wider conflict.
To address that, Tokyo in April said it would offer like-minded countries military aid, including radars, that officials said would help the Philippines plug defensive gaps.
“It is very useful giving radars to the Philippines because it means we could share information about the Bashi Channel,” former Japan Self-Defense Forces chief of staff admiral Katsutoshi Kawano said, referring to the waterway separating the Philippines and Taiwan.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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