Singapore – The first-ever trilateral meeting between the defense chiefs of Japan, Australia and New Zealand signals far more than the emergence of a new regional security format.
The talks over the weekend mark a deliberate shift toward defense-industrial integration as a driver of regional cooperation, with the potential three-way expansion of Tokyo’s Mogami-class frigate program emerging as the central pillar of a nascent trilateral security alignment.
Held on the margins of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore on Saturday, the meeting came as Wellington actively evaluates purchasing the same class of advanced warships that Japan recently sold to Australia, in order to maintain interoperability with its sole formal defense ally.
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