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Japan enhancing defense cooperation with the Philippines and the United States, among other allies, is “a very natural course of action,” a Japanese foreign policy expert said as he noted his country’s own maritime dispute with China.
“We are very, very serious about it. They [Japanese officials] are working on the wording, title. I’m sure we can reach an agreement sooner or later,” Kunihiko Miyake, research director of Japan-based think tank Canon Institute for Global Studies, said at a forum on Friday organized by the Stratbase ADR Institute.
Miyake noted that unlike in Europe, there is no organization such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) between Japan and its allies in the Pacific.
He cited China’s incursions into the waters of the Senkaku Islands northeast of Taiwan.
The dispute gives rise to the need for Japan to enter into defense cooperation arrangements with its allies, said Miyake, a former diplomat who had served the Japanese foreign ministry for more than two decades.
“It’s important for the two nations (Japan and the Philippines) to cooperate with powerful like-minded countries like the US and Australia,” he said.
