Blinken and envoys from Japan, Australia and India work to improve maritime safety in Asia-Pacific

TOKYO (AP) — Top diplomats from Japan, the U.S., Australia and India meeting Monday in Tokyo compiled a set of measures to reinforce maritime safety and cybersecurity and to support other Asia-Pacific countries in improving their defenses during growing tensions in the regional seas.

After the meeting, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmayam Jaishankar said they were “seriously concerned” about the tensions and expressed “strong opposition” to unilateral changes to the status quo by coercion.

They noted “the militarization of disputed features, and coercive and intimidating maneuvers in the South China Sea” as examples, but carefully avoided identifying China in their joint statement.

Several regional governments dispute China's sweeping territorial claims over the South China Sea, which has crucial maritime trade routes and potential energy reserves. Beijing also claims self-governing Taiwan as its territory, to be annexed by force if necessary.

At what are known as the Quad talks, the four ministers agreed on a number of initiatives to counter cyberattacks, ensure maritime security and deal with disinformation. They also announced expanded support for other countries, including in Southeast Asia and Pacific islands, to bolster their abilities in those areas as the Quad seeks to expand its partnerships.

The ministers plan to launch a maritime legal dialogue to focus on the international law of the sea. They said they were determined to contribute to maintaining and developing free-and-open maritime order consistent with the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans and to enhance cooperation and coordination on it.

The four countries are expanding their partnership to include the Indian Ocean to enhance maritime domain awareness, Kamikawa said.

Their initiatives included support for installing a secure telecommunications network in Palau and building cybersecurity capacity in the Philippines and India, according to the joint statement. The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to improving the region’s connectivity through the development of resilient infrastructure such as undersea cables.

“We are committed to putting our collective resources, our collective strength to work to benefit people across the region that we share,” Blinken told a joint news conference after the talks. “We continue to work with partners to ensure that freedom of navigation, overflight, the unimpeded flow of lawful maritime commerce that these continue to go forward. They are critical to the region’s security. They’re critical to its ongoing prosperity.”

Citing Russia's aggression against Ukraine and North Korea's missile advancement, Kamikawa said: “The international situation is becoming increasingly uncertain."

Ensuring stability in maritime, cyber and space domains is crucial to achieve regional prosperity, Kamikawa added.

“We Quad nations aim to protect the foundations of prosperity in the Indo-Pacific as we seek to achieve an international community of coexistence and coprosperity,” she said.

China also has territorial disputes with India, though that was not openly discussed at the meeting.

“We have a problem ... it is for the two of us to sort out," Jaishankar said at a speech in Tokyo later Monday.

Australia’s Wong said the Quad nations were working to achieve “a world in which disputes are managed by rules, by talking, by cooperation, not by force or by power. But most importantly we understand that this does not happen on its own. We have to make this happen."

The talks came after Japan and the United States held their “2+2” security meeting on Sunday, when they called China “the greatest strategic challenge.” They agreed on further deepening military cooperation by making major upgrades to their command structures and bolstering Japanese production and repair of U.S.- licensed weapons.

Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin were to fly to Manila later Monday to hold similar security talks with the Philippines.

On Monday, Austin and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara also held separate talks to follow up on the progress of the command upgrade plans, Japan's sale of missiles to the U.S. and other issues around bilateral military cooperation.

Japan has been accelerating its military buildup and efforts to strengthen its arms industry in a major shift from its postwar, self-defense-only principle under the pacifist Constitution.

Japan has largely eased its restrictins on arms exports. In December on those made in Japan under foreign licensing in part to accommodate a U.S. request for shipment of surface-to-air PAC-3 missile interceptors produced in Japan under an American license to replenish U.S. inventories, which have decreased due to its support for Ukraine.

Kihara told reporters Monday that Japan and the U.S. signed a deal on Sunday to sell an undisclosed number of Japanese-made Patriot missiles currently owned by Japan's Self Air Defense Force, in the first case of finished weapons for export being approved by Japan's National Security Council.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Singapore contributed to this report.