New Defense Minister Gen Nakatani has held his first talks with his US counterpart, with the two agreeing to continue expanding their bilateral presence in Japan’s far-flung Nansei Islands near Taiwan.

Nakatani and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke over the phone late Tuesday, the Defense Ministry said in a statement, with efforts to modernize the alliance’s command-and-control framework another focus of the talks.

The ministers said they could continue “to work more closely than ever before,” including with regional partners “in light of growing attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion in the Indo-Pacific region,” the statement said.