(Provisional translation by an external company for reference purpose only)
I would like to speak about the Japan-Australia Defense Ministerial Meeting at the outset. Earlier today, commencing at 5:40 p.m., I held a Defense Ministerial Meeting with the Hon. Richard Marles MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence of Australia, for approximately one hour. This is my first visit to Australia as Defense Minister. To date, I have held meetings with Minister Marles three times in Tokyo, Hawaii, and Singapore, so this was our fourth meeting. At the meeting, we also concurred that Japan and Australia are the central pillar of the coordination among like-minded countries in the region, and that it is of utmost importance to further enhance efforts to strengthen our deterrence and response capabilities, including those of our ally, the U.S. On top of that, we also discussed various cooperation, such as promoting cooperation between counterstrike capabilities that leverage Japanese stand-off defense capabilities and Australia’s long-range strike capabilities, and efforts to improve interoperability between the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and Australian Defence Force (ADF), including operational cooperation and joint training. In addition, we also concurred to further strengthen cooperation with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific region towards the realization of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”. Furthermore, I expressed a strong concern about the increase of China’s military activities around Japan, especially the intrusion into Japan’s territorial airspace by a Chinese military aircraft on August 26. In light of the situation, Minister Marles and I agreed to further strengthen cooperation against unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion. Considering the Japan-Australia “2+2” to be held tomorrow, we will work closely together at all levels of the defense authorities of Japan and Australia, and further advance defense cooperation between the two countries, including strengthening effective cooperation of the SDF and ADF.