Australia, US, Japan Continue Building Defence Architecture in Indo-Pacific

The United States, Australia, and Japan have pledged to promote stability in the Indo-Pacific amid Beijing’s ongoing belligerence in the South and East China Seas. In a May 2 meeting in Hawaii, Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles met with Japanese Defence Minister Kihara Minoru, and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III, while underscoring the need to collaborate to uphold the rules of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The ministers said that Beijing had exercised “destabilising actions” in the South China Sea, such as unsafe encounters at sea and in the air, the militarisation of disputed features, and the dangerous use of coast guard vessels and maritime militia....