German-Japanese air exercise needed in face of China’s military build-up in region: defence minister

Name: Indonesia and Japan boost naval security ties amid concern over China’s South China Sea actions
Uploaded: 2022-09-29T10:58:41.000Z
Duration: 2 min 8 s
Description: Indonesia and Japan boost naval security ties amid concern over China’s South China Sea actions

Three Japanese F-2 fighters and three German Eurofighter Typhoons took part in formation and navigation training in Japan on Wednesday

German ambassador to Tokyo says other deployments will follow in future because ‘the security situation in the region is relevant to us’

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Shunji Izutsu (right) chief of staff of the Japan Air Self-Defence Force, shakes hands with Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz, chief of the German Air Force, at JASDF’s Hyakuri Air Base in Omitama, Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, on Wednesday. Photo: Kyodo

Jack Lau

Published: 6:58pm, 29 Sep 2022Updated: 8:20pm, 29 Sep 2022

The German air force held its first joint military exercise with the Japanese self-defence force in Japan on Wednesday, as China continues to be wary of US and European efforts to bolster ties with regional partners to promote what they call a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Three Japanese F-2 fighters and three German Eurofighter Typhoons took part in the formation and navigation training designed to strengthen their air forces’ defence cooperation, promote understanding and improve Japanese air force tactical skills, the Japan Air Self-Defence Force said.

The three Eurofighters landed in Japan after an eight-hour flight from Singapore as part of Germany’s Operation Rapid Pacific. The exercise aims to reach out to non-Nato partners in the Asia-Pacific and show operational readiness, according to a statement posted to the German Armed Forces website last month.

02:08

Indonesia and Japan boost naval security ties amid concern over China’s South China Sea actions

It also said the German frigate Bayern’s passage in the South China Sea last year, the first German warship to do so in decades, was the first step towards “German military presence in the Indo-Pacific region”.

Beijing then asked Berlin to clarify its intention with the 2021 mission and declined the frigate’s port call in Shanghai that Germany had requested to “maintain dialogue”.

A video posted by Japan’s air defence force to Twitter on Thursday shows the German and Japanese jets flying in a formation around 3,700 metres (12,100 feet). The exercise was “significant from the perspective of maintaining and strengthening [a free and open Indo-Pacific], not only to Germany but also to other European countries”, it said.

China claims almost all of the contested waters as its own with its nine-dash line.

The term “free and open Indo-Pacific” has been used by Tokyo and Washington to criticise China for maintaining a vast claim over the South China Sea that was invalidated by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016.