The defense ministers of Japan and the Philippines agreed Thursday to bolster security cooperation and expand joint drills between their forces as they shared concerns about China’s increasingly assertive military actions in the region.
Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi and his Philippine counterpart, Delfin Lorenzana, also shared concern about Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its impact in the Indo-Pacific, and noted that any attempts to change the status quo by force is unacceptable, Japan's Defense Ministry said in a statement that avoided identifying China by name.
