Japan and the United States have launched a new organization to analyze information collected by their defense equipment, including U.S. unmanned aircraft recently deployed near the East China Sea, where China is intensifying its military activities.
The new team, based at the Yokota Air Base in the suburbs of Tokyo and dubbed the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Intelligence Analysis Cell, was set up in November following a bilateral agreement at a Japan-U.S. defense ministerial meeting in September to jointly analyze information acquired by Japanese and U.S. assets.
The assets include the U.S. military's MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance drones, which went into operation at the Maritime Self-Defense Force's Kanoya air base in Kagoshima Prefecture in November on a temporary basis.