Japan hosted a gathering of senior enlisted service members from the Five Eyes intelligence partnership Wednesday, the first time a nonmember state has done so, in a move that highlights the growing cooperation between Tokyo and its Western allies amid shared concerns about a rapidly deteriorating international security environment.

The meeting with members from the grouping – comprising the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – took place as part of a broader conference held in Tokyo among senior enlisted personnel from across the Self-Defense Forces.

“We saw a great opportunity to invite the Five Eyes nations to this SDF gathering so that our enlisted leaders can broaden their understanding of the situation in other countries,” Air Self-Defense Force Chief Warrant Officer Osamu Kai, who represented Japan at the gathering, told the Japan Times, adding that another key goal was to promote Japan’s vision of a Free and Open Indo Pacific.

While this marked the first such meeting outside a Five Eyes country, it wasn’t the first time Japan has been involved in such gatherings. For instance, SDF personnel were invited to a similar conference of Canadian senior enlisted members last month.

While not the top decision makers, personnel at this level perform key duties, including providing critical advice to commanders.

“We recognize that the day conflict erupts, we're going to go together and we're going to need allies and partners,” said Canadian Armed Forces Chief Warrant Officer Robert McCann, pointing out that these gatherings “offer us a chance to not only sit together, compare notes, and realize we have the same challenges, but also to create interoperability with partner and like-minded nations.”

McCann said one aim is to improve information-sharing networks.

“These interactions make us better informed as they allow us to brief one another, brainstorm, and get different points of views as we all navigate through this region,” he said. “That makes us better armed forces because we can take that knowledge back and we can build upon it.”

This comes as Tokyo has long stated its interest in becoming the sixth member of the intelligence partnership.

Before leaving his post as Tokyo’s ambassador to Canberra last year, Shingo Yamagami told The West Australian newspaper that Tokyo already enjoyed high levels of cooperation with the other countries and that this had strengthened in the face of China’s growing military and cyber capabilities.

“We have a lot to offer to our friends in the Five Eyes because Japan has been standing on the frontline of strategic challenges facing this region over a number of centuries. By comparing notes between us, I think we can mutually benefit,” he was quoted as saying at the time.

As tensions rise between China and the West, experts have said that Japan – seen as standing on the frontlines of regional strategic challenges – can offer the intelligence grouping the use of its information-gathering capabilities, particularly in the field of electronic surveillance, along with its insight on Asian geopolitics.

John Hemmings, a Japan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said there are increasing calls for the United States and Japan to increase intelligence sharing to better prepare for the possibility of a regional conflict

“The rise of an assertive China in the Indo-Pacific provides a growing rationale for Tokyo’s accession to the group,” he wrote in a commentary last year.

Japan’s inclusion, he noted, would therefore be a “logical progression,” considering the already existing intelligence-sharing apparatus Tokyo has with Australia, France, Britain, and the U.S., and the ongoing negotiations it has with Canada on an information-sharing pact.

Moreover, Japan’s historical focus on China and North Korea, “only makes Japan’s bid stronger,” he added.

For Japan to formally join the Five Eyes though, Hemmings pointed out that Tokyo would have to adopt several Five Eyes standards, in terms of personnel clearance and vetting, information classification and information sharing.

It would also have to convince the other members that its domestic counter-intelligence measures and new legislation can sufficiently protect state secrets.

Tokyo has already made important strides in this direction, pledging to beef up its cyberdefenses while also introducing a bill into parliament that would craft a new “security clearance” system.

But experts say Japan still has some way to go before these measures are implemented or are of a similar standard to those of the Five Eyes nations.

The government is expected to postpone submission until next year of a bill that would introduce an “active cyberdefense” system allowing for preemptive actions against cyberattacks, after the Liberal Democratic Party-led bloc’s dismal Lower House election performance drained Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s political capital.