Japan’s foreign minister has promised his country that it will strengthen its troops to help the United States maintain security in the region during a visit to the US airport on Saturday.
“Today I was able to see for myself in the forefront of national security,” Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln sailing south of Tokyo. Japan will “significantly strengthen” its defense capabilities and work closely with the United States, he added.
Hayashi spoke amid concerns in Japan that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he sees as undermining international communications policies, could encourage neighboring China to use military tactics to conquer Taiwan and threaten nearby Japanese islands.
Japan has also expressed concern over the depth of Beijing’s security relations with Moscow, which included joint footballing in waters surrounding Japan. China has said its targets in Asia are peaceful.
Hayashi flew to Tokyo airliner with US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, who warned that the Ukrainian invasion, described in Russian as a “special operation”, posed a security risk to areas as far away as Europe, including the Indo Pacific.The two watched the airline operate from the Lincoln airstrip, recently off the coast of Japan near the Korean peninsula where it had trained with the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force following the recent launch of North Korean missiles.
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