Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force and the U.S. military Monday invited the media to view a large-scale joint drill in southwestern Japan while launching another exercise northwest of Tokyo amid China's growing assertiveness in the East and South China seas.
The two exercises — Yama Sakura (mountain cherry blossom) in Kumamoto Prefecture and Forest Light in Niigata and Gunma prefectures — focus on scenarios in which Japan and the United States take countermeasures against attacks on remote islands by adversaries, the Defense Ministry said.
In a ceremony Monday for the media viewing of Yama Sakura, a joint command post exercise that began Dec. 2, Lt. Gen. Ryoji Takemoto, head of the GSDF Western Army, said, "For a free and open Indo-Pacific region, improving joint operational capabilities is an urgent task."