When President Joe Biden received Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on Friday, ministers from both sides had already done their part of the job.

In the face of threats from China and North Korea, the United States and Japan are expanding their military cooperation.

Jake Sullivan, the White House National Security Adviser, lauded that Tokyo is vastly stepping up its engagement -- in "lock-step" with the United States, its Indo-Pacific partners and Europe.

Majid Sattar

Political correspondent for North America based in Washington.

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Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced in Washington on Wednesday, together with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Japanese heads of department Yasukazu Hamada and Yoshimasa Hayashi, that both countries had made a "historic alliance decision" to optimize the American military presence.

"These actions will strengthen deterrence in the region and enable us to more effectively defend Japan and its people," Austin said.

Both sides had agreed to adjust the American troop presence in Okinawa.

A kind of rapid reaction force is to be set up in the American military base on the southern Japanese island.

The Marine Littoral Regiment will be created by 2025 as part of the realignment of the Marine Corps in Japan's island prefecture, where the majority of American soldiers in the country are stationed.

"We are replacing an artillery regiment with a unit that is deadlier, more agile and more capable," they said in a joint statement.

The regiment is intended to number about 2,000 soldiers, but not add to the total number of American forces in Okinawa.

The new unit will be able to operate both at sea and in the air.

This takes account of an “increasingly difficult security environment”.

Defense spending to double by 2027

The background is the tense situation in the Taiwan Straits.

The Pentagon said the restructuring of the military presence in Japan was in response to Beijing's increasing military activities in the region.

At the end of December, China deployed more than 70 warplanes in a military exercise near Taiwan, according to Taipei.

47 of the planes had entered the island's air surveillance zone.

Washington and Tokyo also agreed to expand their mutual military assistance commitments.

The defense pact should also apply to threats from or in space.

Blinken announced that the agreement should be signed on Friday.

Military incidents in space can thereafter trigger the mutual assistance obligation.

The agreement states that an attack on one of the two states amounts to an attack on both.

The background is China's progress in the development of military satellites.

The Japanese government comprehensively revised the country's security and defense strategies in December.

The plans envisage doubling defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2027.

The additional expenditure is intended, among other things, to build up the capabilities for a counter-attack with its own rockets or cruise missiles.

In Washington, Austin praised the Japanese turning point.

He spoke of a strategic alignment of Biden's and Kishida's visions.

The Prime Minister is currently visiting the partner countries of the G-7 group, which Tokyo is chairing this year.