US, Japan talk on updating alliance

Washington, Jan 11 (AFP/APP): The United States on Wednesday holds talks on ways to “modernize” its alliance with Japan, which plans to ramp up its defences.

The Japanese foreign and defence ministers were in Washington for talks with their counterparts two days before a visit by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is touring Group of Seven nations to kick off Japan’s leadership this year of the elite club of industrial democracies.

The ministers “are going to lay out a vision of how a modernized alliance between the United States and Japan is positioned to prevail in this new era of strategic competition,” a senior US official said.

The talks are expected to finalize a plan by the United States to send a so-called Marine Littoral Regiment, a more agile unit that can boost defences both by sea and air, to Okinawa, the southern Japanese island strategically close to Taiwan.

Okinawa, under US control until 1972, is home to more than half of the 50,000 US troops in Japan, whose leaders for decades have spoken of easing the burden on a local population often resentful of the bases.