Australia and Japan agreed to share more sensitive intelligence and deepen military cooperation on Saturday, signing a security pact aimed at .
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed the deal in Perth, which replaced a 15-year-old agreement drawn up when terrorism and arms proliferation were top concerns.
“This landmark declaration sends a strong signal to the region of our strategic affiliation,” Mr. Albanese said, welcoming the “Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation.”
Without naming China or North Korea, Mr. Kishida said the agreement was a response to an “increasingly tough strategic environment.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese walk together for a one-on-one meeting at Frasers restaurant in Perth. Source: AAP / Stefan Gazzatti
Neither Australia nor Japan have the armies of foreign intelligence and foreign informants necessary to participate in the top league of global espionage.
Japan has no foreign spy agency equivalent to the US CIA, Britain’s MI6, Russia’s FSB or the much smaller Australian agency ASIO.
But according to expert Bryce Wakefield, Australia and Japan do have superior signals and geospatial capabilities – electronic eavesdropping and high-tech satellites that provide invaluable intelligence on adversaries.
What does the security pact mean for Japan?
Mr Wakefield, director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, said the agreement could also have wider implications, providing a template for Japan to speed up intelligence ties with countries such as Britain.
Some even see the agreement as another step towards Japan joining the powerful Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance between Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
Some even see the agreement as another step towards Japan joining the powerful Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance between Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.
“It is a landmark event that Japan can share SIGINT with a foreign power other than the United States,” Ken Kotani, an expert on the history of Japanese intelligence at Nihon University, told AFP.
“This will strengthen the structure of the Quad (Australia, India, Japan and the United States) and will be the first step for Japan to join the ‘Five Eyes,'” he added.
Such a proposition would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But events in Japan’s neighborhood forced a review of the country’s pacifist policy established after World War II.
In recent years, North Korea has repeatedly fired missiles at and around Japan, while China has built the world’s largest navy, upgraded the world’s largest army, and amassed a nuclear and ballistic arsenal right on Japan’s doorstep.
Japan accused of ruling “like a sieve”
But obstacles remain to Tokyo’s closer cooperation with its security allies.
Japan’s intelligence sharing with the United States and other allies has been hampered by long-standing concerns about Tokyo’s ability to process sensitive classified material and transmit it securely.
“To put it bluntly, Japan has traditionally flowed like a sieve,” said Brad Williams, author of a book on Japanese intelligence policy and a professor at the City University of Hong Kong.
Laws have been introduced to tougher penalties for leaking intelligence, but for now Australia is likely to be forced to scrub any intelligence it passes to Japan of information obtained from the Five Eyes network.
Security was the main topic of discussion during a meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese in Perth. Source: AAP / AP
Prime Ministers Kishida and Albanese also promised to cooperate more actively in the field of energy security.
Japan is a major buyer of Australian gas and has made a number of big bets on Australian-produced hydrogen power in an attempt to ease its lack of domestic energy production and dependence on fossil fuels.
“Japan imports 40 percent of its LNG from Australia. Therefore, it is very important for Japan to have stable relations with Australia from the point of view of energy,” said a Japanese official on the eve of the meeting.
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