SYDNEY: Australia and \u200cJapan signed contracts on Saturday launching their landmark A$10 billion ($7 billion) deal to supply Australia \u200bwith warships, Tokyo\u2019s most consequential military sale since ending a military export ban in 2014.<\/p>\n
Defense Ministers Richard Marles and Shinjiro Koizumi signed a memorandum \u201creaffirming the Australian and Japanese governments\u2019 shared commitment to the successful delivery\u201d of the warships, \u200cMarles said in \u200ca statement.<\/p>\n
The deal \u200bstruck \u200cin \u2060August \u200banchors Japan\u2019s \u2060push away from its postwar pacifism to forge security ties beyond its alliance with the US to counter China.<\/p>\n
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is to supply the Royal Australian Navy with three upgraded Mogami-class \u2060multi-role frigates built in Japan from \u200c2029. Eight \u200cmore frigates will be built \u200bin Australia.<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Defense \u200cMinistry posted on X that Koizumi \u200cand Marles welcomed the \u201cconclusion of contracts for General Purpose Frigates, and confirmed to further strengthen bilateral defense ties\u201d in the signing in \u200cMelbourne.<\/p>\n
Contracts were signed for the first three frigates, to be built \u2060in \u2060Japan, before there is a \u201ctransition to an onshore build\u201d at the Henderson shipyard near Perth in Western Australia, Marles said.<\/p>\n
Australia plans to deploy the ships \u2014 designed to hunt submarines, strike surface ships and provide air defense \u2014 to defend critical maritime trade routes and its northern approaches in the Indian and Pacific \u200bOceans, where \u200bChina\u2019s military footprint is expanding. ($1 = 1.3955 Australian dollars)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SYDNEY: Australia and \u200cJapan signed contracts on Saturday launching their landmark A$10 billion ($7 billion) deal to supply Australia \u200bwith warships, Tokyo\u2019s most consequential military sale since ending a military export ban in 2014. Defense Ministers Richard Marles and Shinjiro Koizumi signed a memorandum \u201creaffirming the Australian and Japanese governments\u2019 shared commitment to the successful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-542477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n