Tokyo. The United States will extend its cyber defense umbrella over Japan, helping its Asian ally cope with the growing threat of online attacks against military bases and infrastructure such as power grids, the two nations said in a joint statement on Saturday.

“We note a growing level of sophistication among malicious cyber actors, including non-state and state-sponsored actors,” they said in a statement released by the US-Japan Cyber Defense Policy Working Group, which was established in 2013.

Cybersecurity is a key area where Japan and the United States are deepening their military partnership under a set of new security guidelines released in April, that will also integrate their ballistic missile defense systems and give Tokyo a bigger security role in Asia as China’s military power grows.

Both the United States and Japan are wary of cyber threats, including potential attacks from China or North Korea. While the United States is investing heavily in building a force to counter and retaliate against online attacks, Japan, which hosts the biggest US military contingent in Asia, has been slower to buttress its cyber defenses.

The Japanese military’s cyber defense unit has around 90 members, compared to more than 6,000 people at the Pentagon, a Japanese Defense Ministry official said at a briefing on Thursday.

Japan is trying to catch up as it prepares to host the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and with cyber attacks on the rise. Assaults on government websites are now being detected every few seconds, according to Japanese cyber defense experts.

In the statement on Saturday, Japan’s Defense Ministry pledged to “contribute to join “efforts for addressing various cyber threats, including those against Japanese critical infrastructure and services utilized by the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces.”

US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who met his Japanese counterpart Gen. Nakatani at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, unveiled a more muscular military cyber strategy in April that stressed an ability to retaliate with cyber weapons.

That strengthened deterrence comes in the wake of high-profile attacks against corporations including the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment last year, which the US blamed on North Korea.

China’s Defense Ministry expressed concern about the new strategy saying it would worsen tension over Internet security. China is frequently accused by the US of being engaged in widespread hacking attacks, charges Beijing denies.

Reuters

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Hickham Field, Hawaii. Military commanders from Japan, Australia, the Philippines and 20 other mostly Asia-Pacific nations huddled around a large tactical map, poring over satellite images in readiness for an amphibious raid on Hawaii’s most populous island Oahu.

Although only a drill, it represented a glimpse of cooperation and integration among non-Chinese amphibious forces in Asia that the United States is belatedly encouraging.

A senior US official told Reuters the-first-of-its-kind gathering also signifies a nudge towards containing China, as Beijing grows increasingly assertive in pushing its territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The shift has left supporters of engagement with China “under pressure,” said the source, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Early on Tuesday, the foreign amphibious commanders participating in the PACOM Amphibious Leaders Symposium (PALS), boarded Osprey tilt rotor aircraft at Hickam air base, near Honolulu, for a 20-minute ride over the tropical seas around Oahu to the amphibious assault ship USS Essex and other vessels for a demonstration of American marine muscle.

“I don’t think China can match the complexity,” said Martin Sebastian, head of the Maritime Institute of Malaysia, in the hangar deck after a tour of the 40,000 ton, 266-meter Essex.

A US spokesman said China was not invited to the meeting because doing so would have contravened a law prohibiting military-to-military exchanges with China at such events.

China joined in US-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercises last year with more than 20 countries, but was limited to things like humanitarian relief and search and rescue operations.

Tuesday’s exercise had only a military objective; to land a marine units on a beach by boat and helicopter and destroy the fictitious training camp of an insurgent group.

Maritime tensions

The drill, involving Ospreys, Harrier jump jet aircraft, armored vehicles, B-52 bombers and hovercraft, follows a two-day visit to China by US Secretary of State John Kerry that was dominated by concerns about Beijing’s territorial ambitions.

Recent Chinese reclamation work has stoked tensions in the South China Sea, where Beijing is building man-made islands around seven reefs in the Spratly archipelago that are also claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam.

With a force of around 12,000 marines that it can rapidly expand in times of conflict, China, say military experts, represents a formidable potential foe.

The United States maintains a presence of some 80,000 troops, almost half its strength, in Asia, most on Japan’s Okinawa island at the edge of the East China Sea.

Better integrating the amphibious operations of non-Chinese forces in the Asia-Pacific represents an arduous challenge. Capabilities vary from country to country, gear, including communications, is not interoperable and funding is scarce.

“Capabilities haven’t developed as quickly or as fully as they might,” said Grant Newsham, a former Marine liaison officer to Japan’s Ground Self Defense Force, who attended the meeting.

“The Symposium will hopefully coalesce these ongoing but somewhat disjointed efforts towards amphibious capability.”

Inter-regional rivalries are another hurdle to cooperation.

For example, one participant, who asked not to be identified, said cooperation between Japan and South Korea, which has about 25,000 marines, was impossible because Seoul might one day have to defend territory also claimed by Tokyo.

For some checking out the US military hardware, America’s enthusiasm to forge more capable amphibious forces in the region could provide a more immediate benefit by helping prepare for natural disasters such as super typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines 2013.

“It will help enhance the capability we should have,” said Alexander Lopez, a Philippine vice admiral. The US “is a big brother for the region.”

Reuters

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