FirstFT: US and Japan plan upgrade to security alliance

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Good morning. The US and Japan are planning the biggest upgrade to their security alliance since they signed a mutual defence treaty in 1960 in a move to counter China.

President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will announce plans to restructure the US military command in Japan to strengthen operational planning and exercises between the nations, according to five people familiar with the situation. They will unveil the plan when Biden hosts Kishida at the White House on April 10.

The allies want to bolster their security ties to respond to what they view as a growing threat from China, which requires their militaries to co-operate and plan more seamlessly, particularly in a crisis such as a Taiwan conflict.

But co-ordination between the allies is hampered because US Forces Japan has changed little from the days when the US and Japanese militaries did less together and has little command and control authority. Japan has to deal more with US Indo-Pacific command in Hawaii, which is 19 hours behind Tokyo and 6,200km away.

The FT’s Demetri Sevastopulo and Kana Inagaki report on the plans under consideration in Tokyo and Washington to strengthen their security pact.

And here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• China Development Forum: China’s flagship international business conference in Beijing continues. Yesterday IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva told the forum that China’s economy is at a “fork in the road” where it must choose between past policies or “pro-market reforms” to unlock growth.

• Economic data: Japan reports February supermarket and department store sales figures, Taiwan releases industrial output data for the month and Malaysia and Singapore report consumer price index inflation rate data.

• Japan: Minutes from the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy meeting are due after the central bank ended an era of negative interest rates earlier this month.

• India: Financial markets are closed for Holi.

Five more top stories

1. China has introduced new guidelines that will mean US microprocessors from Intel and AMD are phased out of government computers. The rules also seek to sideline Microsoft’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favour of domestic options. 

• Cyberthreats: Britain’s MPs will today be put on alert to the threat of cyber attacks by Beijing ahead of this year’s UK general election, after a number of China hawks were targeted at Westminster.

2. A Moscow court has ordered the detention of four suspects in the largest attack on Russian soil in more than a decade as the country held a day of mourning over the assault, which killed at least 137 people and injured 180. The identities of the suspects were confirmed for the first time as they appeared before the court yesterday and were placed in custody pending trial.

• How the Ukraine war distracted Moscow from Isis-K threat: Since the invasion of Ukraine two years ago, Russia’s security services have shifted their focus away from Islamist terror.

3. Israel says it has killed 170 people and detained 800 more in an almost week-long clash with Hamas militants at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, one of the biggest battles of the war in the Palestinian enclave. Here’s what we know about the Israeli raid on the hospital.

4. Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are leading a parade of corporate insiders who have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of their companies’ shares this quarter. Analysts said the selling spree is an indicator that a recent tech bull run, fuelled by excitement over the rise of generative artificial intelligence, may be peaking.

5. Nearly two years into a Republican campaign to punish BlackRock for insisting that climate change carries financial risk, red state investment funds have pulled about $13.3bn from the world’s largest asset manager. The latest loss of $8.5bn in Texas comes after BlackRock tried to make inroads in the Republican state.

News in-depth

Zhimin Qian’s spectre loomed over the London trial that concluded last week with the conviction of her “carer and assistant” Jian Wen for money laundering. A fugitive from the Beijing authorities who remains at large, Qian allegedly defrauded more than 128,000 people in China, amassing huge sums of bitcoin. In court, Wen’s lawyer called Qian — who went by the alias Yadi Zhang and dreamt of becoming a Buddhist goddess — a “supervillian” and “master of deception”.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Egg freezing: It’s fraught with difficulties yet many people are seeking to free themselves from the limits of their biological clock. The FT’s India Ross recounts a personal journey.

• Digital overabundance: Having all the products of human civilisation at your fingertips can feel overwhelming, writes Jemima Kelly.

• Covid time warp: Four years after lockdowns began covid we are still learning about pandemic hangovers, writes Pilita Clark.

Chart of the day

Budget-conscious South Koreans are increasingly turning to low-priced Chinese online marketplaces such as AliExpress and Temu as China’s biggest ecommerce companies aggressively expand abroad amid weaker domestic consumption.

Take a break from the news

Art Basel Hong Kong opens this week, and the return of former exhibitors to the fair has boosted the city’s place in Asia’s art market even as political and economic challenges persist.