The United States and Japan begin two weeks of military exercises on Thursday that will deploy a missile system capable of striking the Chinese mainland, a move Beijing has already condemned as threat to regional security and stability.
The Resolute Dragon exercises kick off less than 48 hours after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with his Chinese counterpart, Defense Minister Adm. Dong Jun, via video call in their first known talks, which the Pentagon described as “candid and constructive.”
The US-Japan drills also come just over a week after a massive Chinese military parade in Beijing, during which the People’s Liberation Army showed off some of its newest missile systems while leader Xi Jinping watched alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
The joint exercises will feature the US’s Typhon and NMESIS missiles as well as Japan’s Type 12 surface-to-surface missiles, according to a US Marine Corps press release.
The missile systems of varying ranges provide a “layered” capability to “protect critical waterways, defend key terrain, and project power from ashore,” the release said.
Beijing has already called out the deployment of the Typhon, also known as the US Army’s Mid-Range Capability (MRC) system, as “a substantial threat to strategic security in the region.”
“The US and Japan should respect other countries’ security concerns and must not bring in the ‘Typhon’ intermediate-range missile system,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said late last month.
The Typhon system is capable of firing the Standard Missile 6 (SM-6), which can be used in ballistic missile defense, aircraft defense and can also target ships at sea at a range of 370 kilometers (230 miles), according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
It also can fire the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, a maneuverable cruise missile with a range of 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles), according to the CSIS.
It was first deployed to the Pacific for exercises last year in the Philippines, in a move that was also condemned by Beijing.
The Typhon will be at the Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni on Japan’s main island of Honshu for the Resolute Dragon exercises, the Marine statement said.
The Marine Corps release did not say where the other systems would be deployed, but did say the exercises would include Japan’s Southwest Islands, which extend to within 70 miles (113 kilometers) of the coast of Taiwan, the self-governing island that the Chinese Communist Party claims as its own and has vowed to seize by force if necessary.
The NMESIS system is a shorter-range missile, about 115 miles (185 kilometers), that fires sea-skimming missiles at naval targets.
