The highlights this week: Japan and the Philippines build up defense cooperation, Vietnam’s leadership is set to consolidate power, and Elon Musk’s Grok is banned in three countries.
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The highlights this week: Japan and the Philippines build up defense cooperation, Vietnam’s leadership is set to consolidate power, and Elon Musk’s Grok is banned in three countries.
Philippines-Japan Deepen Defense Relationship Japan and the Philippines have signed a new defense pact to allow the smooth transfer of materiel between their armed forces.
The agreement is another step toward deepening military cooperation between the two countries and part of Japan’s wider push to expand its security relationships across the Indo-Pacific. The agreement lays out a framework for the two countries’ armed forces to provide each other with ammunition, fuel, food, and other materiel.
The pact helps implement the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA)—signed in 2024 and implemented last year—which allows both countries’ armed forces to legally enter and perform operations in each other’s territory.
Japan has ramped up its security cooperation with the Philippines in other ways, too, steadily donating vessels and other equipment to the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy for years. There are now discussions that the navy could also acquire secondhand warships and air defense missiles from Japan.
These measures are aimed at hedging against Chinese coercion, with both countries facing Chinese claims to their territorial waters.
At the signing on Jan.
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