A Japanese government official told the Kyodo News on Saturday that the country plans to update its defense program guidelines five years earlier than initially planned. The guidelines are usually revised every 10 years.

It is an obvious sop to US President Donald Trump in the hope of strengthening the Japan-US defense alliance.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged that he and Trump had spent a fair amount of time talking about the alliance and China during their meeting earlier this month.