Japan's PM seeks security ties with Australia, India
29 December AFP
Japan's hawkish new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has sought to expand
the Japan-US security partnership to Australia and India as it faces a
bitter territorial row with China, a newspaper reported Saturday.
“The Japan-US alliance is the cornerstone,” Abe, sworn in as prime
minister on Wednesday, said in an interview with the mass-circulation
Yomiuri Shimbun.
“It's good to expand it to security co-operation among Japan, the
United States and India. (Co-operation) among Japan, the United States
and Australia will also contribute to stability in the region,” Abe
said.
“It is important to regain the region's power balance,” he added
without elaborating.
Abe won conservative support in national polls earlier this month
with forthright pronouncements on the Senkaku islands in the East China
Sea, vowing not to budge on Japan's claim to them.
China also lays claim to the island chain, which it calls the Diaoyu.
Beijing has sent ships into the islands' waters many times since
Tokyo nationalised the chain in September, with analysts saying China
intends to prove it can come and go as it pleases.
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