Ominously, the recently signed Japan-Australia Defence Agreement 2021 portends the tightening of the Strategic Deterrence noose against China both in terms of their strategic weight and also that yet an additional layer is added over and to the Indo Pacific security architecture led by the United States.
Japan and Australia are Major Powers of the Indo Pacific strategically located in the Northern and Southern segments of the Pacific Ocean. The strategic weight of Japan in Indo Pacific security arises from their long-standing durability as enduring Allies of the United States through the decades-old US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty and ANZUS (Australia-New Zealand-United States Alliance).
Additionally, Japan and Australia are members of the QUAD Security Initiative and Australia recently became member of AUKUS comprising Australia, UK and US-- the three member Nuclear Submarines Alliance, with planned transfer of US nuclear submarines technology to Australia.
In 2022, the geopolitical picture obtaining is that Japan and Australia intensely perceive the China Threat as a strategic concern for their respective national security interests. Both Japan and Australia in recent ears have been at the receiving end of China's political and economic coercion.
China has in recent years been making determined forays into Southern Pacific smaller island nations over which Australia had enjoyed strategic influence.
Logically therefore, it was natural for Japan and Australia to establish a strong Defence Partnership providing complimentary security weightage to each other bilaterally, over and above, their respective security treaties with United States.
Japan and Australia can now be expected to intensify their military exchanges and joint exercises to cater for contingencies arising in the Western Pacific because of China's depredations in South China Sea, threats of Taiwan invasion and meddling in South Est Asia. Japan and Australia share strategic convergences on these aspects.
Japan-Australia Bilateral Defence Agreement needs to be strategically viewed as an insurance by both countries to cater for any contingency of an unlikely isolationist impulses that sometimes afflict the United States polity.
Concluding,in terms of overall Indo Pacific Security Template the Japan-Australia Defence Agreement besides adding another weighty strand to the web of security relationships that have emerged as "Strategic Deterrence" to China's threatening postures in the Indo Pacific also portends and signals the 'firm intentions' of United States, Japan, Australia and India to deter China in different combinations from its wanton aggressive impulses.
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