Canadian Defence Minister Bill Blair said Canada is in discussions about joining the expanded AUKUS agreement between the United States, Britain and Australia, aimed at countering China’s growing military influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Canada has said it wants to join a second pillar of AUKUS that would cooperate on new military technologies including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, but has not yet revealed any details of those talks.
The military alliance AUKUS refers to Australia, United Kingdom, United States.
“There have been significant discussions about processes and forums on a project-specific basis in which Japan and other nations, including us, can participate,” Blair said in an interview while meeting his Japanese counterpart, Minoru Kihara, in Tokyo.
“I will respectfully wait until they reach their decision, but I am very optimistic,” he said.
Blair said he and Kihara discussed AUKUS, which is already considering working with Japan. In the early stages of AUKUS, the three founding members are working on nuclear submarine technology for Australia.
Blair, on his first visit to Japan as defence secretary, arrived in Tokyo from South Korea, which is also in talks about a role in AUKUS.
Canada is seeking a greater security role in Asia and has prioritized building deeper ties with Japan and South Korea. The country is increasing military spending as its defense commitments at home and abroad grow.
Blair said, “Next year my defence budget will increase by 27% compared to this year, and quite frankly in the next three or four years our defence expenditure will triple.”
He and Kihara also discussed Chinese incursions into Japanese territory, which prompted Tokyo to lodge a protest with Beijing last month.
Blair said concerns about Chinese military activity could be discussed at a meeting of Group of Seven defence ministers in Italy next month.
“This is an important opportunity for us to talk about some of the developments among G-7 partners that are of deep concern to Japan, Canada, the United States and other countries,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
