$50b sub deal 'would bring Japan and Australia closer together' By David Wroe Japan sees its bid for Australia's $50 billion submarine program as just one step in deepening defence ties that would also have the two nations' navies work closely together on joint operations such as enforcing freedom on the seas. 
The visiting delegation from Japan, which is bidding for the hotly contested program to replace the Collins Class submarine, says choosing Japan over rivals Germany and France would help cement the natural bond between the two major democracies of the western Pacific. In comments that are likely to raise hackles in Beijing, senior Japanese defence official Masaki Ishikawa told Fairfax Media that Japan would like to go much further than just building Australia's next subs.
"We would like to deepen our strategic co- operation with Australia. So we don't want to stop at the submarine building co-operation itself. We want to go further to operational co- operation in the submarine area: joint training, joint operations, something like that.
  Maybe the US could join us [in a] trilateral operational co-operation," he told Fairfax Media on the sidelines of the Royal Australian Navy's Sea Power conference in Sydney.
"Two democracies and two such allied countries of the US - we can co-operate in keeping the Pacific safe."
The strategic argument to buying Japanese submarines remains a central plank of the country's pitch to Australia. The two countries' navies would be closely bound together by using the same submarine technology. It was a dimension enthusiastically embraced by former prime minister Tony Abbott, who believed that Canberra and Tokyo should deepen ties amid the rise of China and the strategic uncertainty that this is causing, though this outlook is expected broadly to continue under Malcolm Turnbull.