In the wake of incidents of increased aggression by China in the disputed South China Sea and East China Sea, Japan and the Philippines agreed to further deepen their defence collaboration and discuss about protecting shared military information.
According to media reports, Japanese Defence Minister Gen Nakatani and his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro discussed their mutual concern over China's actions in the region.
Teodoro said the Philippines was looking forward to boosting defence relations with Japan against unilateral attempts by China and other countries to change the international order and the narrative.
The Japanese defence minister said after the meeting that he agreed with Teodoro to strengthen operational cooperation, including joint and multinational defence trainings, port calls and information-sharing. "We also agreed to commence discussion between defence authorities on military information protection mechanism,” Nakatani said.
Nakatani said he and Teodoro agreed that the security environment surrounding the two countries is becoming increasingly severe and that it is necessary for Japan and the Philippines as strategic partners to further enhance defence cooperation and collaboration in order to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
While Japan has had a longstanding territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea, the Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships, meanwhile, have been involved in a series of increasingly hostile confrontations in the South China Sea in the last two years. The most recent incident being a Chinese navy helicopter flying within 10 feet of a Philippine patrol plane on Tuesday near the disputed Scarborough Shoal off the northwestern Philippines.
—With agency inputs