Next month's joint military exercises between South Korea, the United States and Japan are representative of the three-way security cooperation the United States wants to have with the two allies, the Pentagon said Monday.

The three countries plan to hold the anti-missile exercises in Hawaii next month to better counter North Korea's ever-growing nuclear and missile threats. The maneuvers will take place on the sidelines of the Rim of the Pacific exercise, U.S.-led biennial multinational naval wargames.

It will be the first anti-missile drills between the countries.

"This just reflects the kind of coordination that we want to have with our allies at an important time right now in terms of security issues in that part of the world," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said at a regular press briefing.

"And you've seen the actions of the North Koreans in recent weeks. And again, this is part of a larger exercise, and one additional step that we can take with our allies to try and make sure we're doing everything we can to coordinate our defensive posture in the region," he said.

The United States has long sought to bolster trilateral security cooperation with South Korea and Japan as a counterbalance to China's rise, leading efforts to put together the three-way military intelligence sharing agreement signed in late 2014.

Such efforts got a boost from a landmark agreement between South Korea and Japan in late December on resolving the issue of Japan's wartime sexual slavery, a major thorn that had soured not only relations between the two countries, but also three-way cooperation with the U.S.

China reacted negatively to the planned exercises.

"The situation on the Korean Peninsula is still sensitive and complex," China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters Monday when asked about the planned drills. "We hope that all parties will remain cool-headed and refrain from taking actions that may escalate tensions." (Yonhap)