Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III will embark on his 11th official visit to the Indo-Pacific this week, visiting Japan and the Philippines to bolster defense partnerships and promote regional stability. Over a 10-day period, Austin will meet with key counterparts to support a shared vision for peace and deterrence.
In Japan, Austin will participate in the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee meeting in Tokyo, alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They will meet with Japanese Minister of Defense Kihara Minoru and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamikawa Yoko. Additionally, Austin and Kihara will hold the first-ever Trilateral Ministerial Meeting (TMM) with South Korean Minister of National Defense in Japan, continuing the dialogue on regional security concerns and trilateral cooperation initiated last month in Singapore.
These meetings build on last summer’s Camp David summit, where President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol agreed on initiatives to enhance security cooperation, including ballistic missile defense and trilateral exercises. Since the summit, significant progress has been made, such as the real-time exchange of missile-warning data to counter North Korean threats and the successful completion of the Freedom Edge exercise, which focused on various defense operations.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., recently emphasized the importance of the trilateral defense relationship during meetings with Japan’s Gen. Yoshida Yoshihide and South Korean Adm. Kim Myung-soo in Tokyo.
Following their visit to Japan, Austin and Blinken will travel to the Philippines for the fourth U.S.-Philippines 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, meeting with Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo. These discussions come amid recent advancements in U.S.-Filipino defense relations, highlighted by the expansion of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and the growth of the Balikatan exercise, which saw its largest iteration this year with approximately 16,000 participants from multiple countries.
The designation of four new U.S. rotational access sites in the Philippines under EDCA aims to strengthen combined training and interoperability. Gen. Brown’s recent visit to the Philippines, where he engaged with key defense officials, further underscored the commitment to maritime domain awareness and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific.–News Desk