TOKYO (AFP) — Japan and the European Union (EU) signed a new security and defense partnership in Tokyo on Friday, which EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell hailed as a historic and timely step, Agence France-Presse TV footage showed.

Borrell and his Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya announced the pact, which comes into force in January and which local media said includes more joint military drills, senior-level dialogue and defense industry cooperation.

Iwaya told reporters this week that the pact comes “as Japan and the EU face an increasingly challenging security environment.”

He did not mention China, but Japan has previously called its neighbor its greatest security challenge as Beijing builds up military capacity in the region.

After the Tokyo talks, Borrell will head to South Korea, where concerns about North Korea will top the agenda.

The United States has said thousands of North Korean troops are in Russia readying to fight in Ukraine.

Pyongyang also test-fired one of its newest and most powerful missiles on Thursday, demonstrating its threat to the US mainland days ahead of elections.

“My visit to two of our closest partners in the Indo-Pacific is a key milestone in our efforts over the past five years to strengthen the EU’s active engagement,” Borrell said in a statement Thursday.

“We have secured alignment on geopolitical issues and advanced the values we share,” he said, promising “a new chapter in our ever-closer relations.”

The Japan-EU Security and Defense Partnership, expected to be announced on Friday, “aims to further develop, deepen and strengthen cooperation and dialogue in all areas of security and defense,” Iwaya said on Tuesday.

“Specifically, we envision cooperation in the areas of maritime security, space, cybersecurity and hybrid threats, including foreign disinformation and interference,” he said.

The security of the Asia-Pacific region is “inseparable from that of Europe and the Atlantic,” Iwaya added.

Japan is ramping up defense spending to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standard of two percent of gross domestic product by 2027, partly to counter China, which is increasing military pressure on Taiwan.

Beijing claims the self-ruled island as part of its territory and has not ruled out using force to bring it under its control.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who could head a minority government after a disastrous general election last week, has said that “today’s Ukraine could be tomorrow’s East Asia.”