Japan will deploy an anti-missile defense unit on the island of Yonaguni, the westernmost of the country and located 110 kilometers from Taiwan. The information was published by the Japanese news agency Jiji News this Tuesday (27).
According to the publication, the installation is part of a plan to expand a Japanese Army camp on the island – managed by the prefecture of Okinawa.
The announcement comes a day after China carried out the largest 24-hour air strike in history against Taipei’s defenses. At the time, there were 71 fighter planes in the air, with 47 of them invading the so-called median line, which divides the virtual border of Taiwan and mainland China.
According to the Japan Times, the Japanese Defense Ministry’s 2023 budget plan includes costs to acquire 180,000 square meters of land located west of the Yonaguni camp. Such a purchase would be aimed at building facilities for the missile unit, including an ammunition depot.
The camp was created in 2016 to monitor vessel and aircraft activities in the region; the new plan also calls for the formation of a unit designed to jam communications with military adversaries. Currently, the place is home to around 200 soldiers from the country’s Army and Air Force.
Also according to the Japan Times, Tokyo also plans to deploy missile units in other regions of the Nansei Islands – archipelago where Yonaguni is located. On Miyako and Amami-Oshima islands, structures with the same purpose would have already been delivered.
On the 16th, Japan unveiled its biggest military boost since World War II, with a $320 billion plan to buy missiles capable of hitting China.
Such a war budget, which would previously be unthinkable in traditionally pacifist Japan, places the country in third place in the ranking of highest military spending, behind only the United States and China.
One of the justifications for the increase in military spending is the security of the Japanese islands close to Taiwan. That’s because Tokyo fears that an eventual invasion by China of territory considered rebellious by Beijing could threaten its islands in the region.
In its post-war Constitution, Japan gives up the right to wage war and the means to do so. The new military budget, therefore, seems to point in the other direction, although Tokyo argues that all planned investment is part of a self-defense strategy – like the plan released on Tuesday.
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