(Adds joint statement)
By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - The United States and Japan on Wednesday announced stepped-up security cooperation in the face of shared worries about China, and Washington strongly endorsed a major military buildup Tokyo announced last month.
A joint statement issued after a meeting between their foreign and defense ministers in Washington said the two countries "provided a vision of a modernized Alliance postured to prevail in a new era of strategic competition."
"We agree that the PRC is the greatest shared strategic challenge that we and our allies and partners face," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a joint news conference after the meeting, referring to the People's Republic of China.
At the briefing, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced plans to introduce a Marine Littoral Regiment in Japan, which would bring significant capabilities, including anti-ship missiles. Blinken said that two sides also agreed to extend the terms of their common defense treaty to cover space.
The joint statement said that given "a severely contested environment," the forward posture of U.S. forces in Japan should be upgraded "by positioning more versatile, resilient, and mobile forces with increased intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, anti-ship, and transportation capabilities."
Austin is to meet Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada again on Thursday at the Pentagon ahead of a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday.
A senior administration official told Reuters that Biden and Kishida are expected to discuss security issues and the global economy and that their talks are likely to include control of semiconductor exports to China after Washington announced strict curbs last year.
Although the total number of U.S. troops in Japan will not change, the new deployments could be the first of several announcements this year on military forces in Asia aimed at making Beijing think twice before initiating any conflict.
The agreement follows nearly a year of talks and comes after Japan last month announced its biggest military build-up since World War Two - a dramatic departure from seven decades of pacifism, fueled by concerns about Chinese actions in the region.
That five-year plan will double Japan's defense spending to 2% of its gross domestic product and see it procure missiles that can strike ships or land-based targets 1,000 km (600 miles) away.
Asked about the Japanese reforms, Blinken said: