KEY POINTS
- China urged the US and Japan to “promptly withdraw” the Typhon missile system deployed in Japan.
- Beijing said the deployment poses a “substantive threat” to regional security and risks fuelling an arms race.
- Japan’s Self-Defence Forces showcased the system for the first time but said it would not be fired during the exercises.
- The US-developed system can launch Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles, capable of striking targets in China and beyond.
- Japan is pursuing its largest military build-up since WWII, buying Tomahawks and developing intermediate-range missiles.
BEIJING: China urged the United States and Japan on Tuesday to immediately withdraw the US-developed Typhon missile system after its first deployment in Japan during joint military exercises, warning that the move poses a “substantive threat” to regional security, state media reported.
Japan and the United States began the “Resolute Dragon” military drills on Thursday, and they will last until September 25, Tokyo’s defence ministry said on X.
Japan’s Self-Defence Forces said that the missile system had been showcased for the first time in the country over the course of the exercises, though it said the weapon would not be fired, AFP reported.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian called on the United States and Japan to “promptly withdraw” the missile system, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The United States and Japan, disregarding China’s solemn concerns, have insisted on deploying the Typhon mid-range missile system in Japan under the pretext of joint exercises,” the spokesperson told reporters at a regular briefing.
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to this,” he added.
The United States’ Typhon missile system is part of the army’s long-range precision strike “modernisation portfolio”, according to an April report on the US Naval Institute’s website.
The system “leverages existing Raytheon-produced SM-6 missiles and Raytheon-produced Tomahawk cruise missiles and modifies them for ground launch”, it added.
It is “a truck-based, trailer-loaded system that is able to be employed throughout rugged and austere positions”, US Colonel Wade Germann told reporters Monday at an air station in the Japanese city of Iwakuni.
“The deterrent against armed attacks can be enhanced as the security environment surrounding Japan becomes increasingly severe,” a spokesperson for Japan’s Self-Defence Forces said, cited by AFP.
Typhon was deployed in the northern Philippines in 2024 for annual joint exercises.
Typhon Missile System Can Target China and Russia
In December, Manila angered Beijing when it said it planned to acquire the system in a push to secure its maritime interests.
“The United States’ deployment of the Typhon system in Asian countries… heightens the risk of a regional arms race and military confrontation, and poses a substantive threat to regional strategic security,” Lin said Tuesday.
The spokesperson said that the US and Japan should “earnestly respect the security concerns of other countries, face up to the request of regional countries, and correct their wrong practices”.
The deployment of Typhon missile system in Japan underscores Washington and Tokyo’s growing willingness to field weapons that Beijing has condemned as destabilising.
The land-based launcher is capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles with enough range to strike China’s eastern seaboard or parts of Russia from Japan, Reuters reported.
“Employing multiple systems and different types of munitions, it is able to create dilemmas for the enemy,” Colonel Wade Germann, commander of the task force that operates the missile system, said at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in front of the launcher.
“The speed with which it can be deployed enables us to forward position it when required expeditiously,” he said as quoted by Reuters. He declined to say where the unit will go next or whether it will return to Japan. The US also conducted live-fire exercises in Australia this year.
Typhon can also fire SM-6 missiles designed to strike ships or aircraft at ranges beyond 200 km (125 miles). Washington is seeking to mass such anti-ship weapons across Asia as it tries to counter China’s growing missile arsenal, according to Reuters.
Japan is also stepping up military spending. It is buying Tomahawk missiles for its warships and developing its own intermediate-range missiles as part of its biggest military expansion since World War Two.
