WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0A U.S. plan to deploy sophisticated missiles on a Japanese island chain close to Taiwan is prompting angry responses from both China and its close ally Russia. The United States is drawing up a joint military plan with Japan to deploy High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and other weapons to Japan\u2019s Nansei Islands, according to a Sunday report by Kyodo News, which cited unnamed sources. The plan is expected to be completed by December. The island chain stretches from Japan\u2019s main islands to within 200 kilometers of Taiwan and includes Okinawa,which has a major U.S. military presence. The U.S. could use the missiles to defend Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion of the self-ruled island, which Beijing claims as a renegade province. The plan, the first joint operation by the U.S. and Japan to prepare for a war between Taiwan and China, will involve sending a U.S. Marine Corps regiment that possesses HIMARS and setting up temporary bases on the Nansei Islands to station them, said Kyodo. The Japan Self-Defense Forces would be expected to provide logistic support, including fuel and ammunition. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson criticized the reported plan at a press conference on Monday, saying, \u201cChina opposes relevant countries using the Taiwan question as an excuse to strengthen military deployment in the region, heighten tensions and confrontation, and disturb regional peace and stability.\u201d Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded with a stronger statement, warning that her country would respond to the deployment with \u201cnecessary and proportionate steps\u201d to strengthen its defense capabilities, according to the Russian news agency Tass on Wednesday. \u201cWe have repeatedly warned the Japanese side that if, as a result of such cooperation, U.S. medium-range missiles emerge on its territory, this will pose a real threat to the security of our country,\u201d Zakharova said. Tass also quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov urging Washington to reconsider the deployment of missiles to the Asia-Pacific. He warned that Moscow will not rule out stationing shorter- and intermediate-range missiles in Asia in response to the U.S. deployment. Earlier in November, Russian President Vladimir Putin said China is Russia\u2019s ally and \u201cTaiwan is part of China,\u201d and that China conducting wargames near the island is \u201ca completely reasonable policy\u201d while Taipei is escalating tensions. While Russia and China have no formal military treaty, Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have spoken of having a \u201cno limits\u201d partnership, and the United States accuses China of supporting Russia\u2019s war efforts against Ukraine. U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken said at a press conference held at the G7 meeting in Italy on Tuesday that China\u2019s support for Russia\u2019s defense industry is \u201callowing Russia to continue the aggression against Ukraine.\u201d US-Japan missile plan Despite Moscow\u2019s alarming rhetoric, analysts say the deployment of HIMARS to the region is primarily aimed at protecting Taiwan from Chinese warships. \u201cThe most important purpose of HIMARS\u201d would be \u201can anti-ship capability\u201d and to \u201cprotect the island and base itself,\u201d said Michael O\u2019Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said last week at a forum held by the Brookings Institution that China this past summer conducted its largest rehearsal to date for an invasion of Taiwan involving 152 vessels. He cautioned that the U.S. \u201cmust be ready.\u201d The Chinese People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy possesses the world\u2019s largest naval force with over 370 ships and submarines while the U.S. has about 290 vessels. Eye on Chinese invasion Timothy Heath, senior international defense researcher at the RAND Corp., said HIMARS on the Nansei islands \u201ccould help sink amphibious landing ships as well as destroyers and other PLA Navy ships that might approach the island from the north\u201d and also \u201ctarget concentrations of PLA troops on beaches near Taipei.\u201d Heath continued, \u201cThe fielding of these weapons systems shows that the U.S. and its allies are learning lessons from the Ukraine theater, where HIMARS have been effectively deployed against Russia.\u201d The U.S. is also planning to deploy the Multi-Domain Task Force\u2019s (MDTS) long-range firing units to the Philippines, said Kyodo news on Sunday. The MDTS uses HIMARS as long-range firing units. \u201cThe deployment of HIMARS to Nansei islands and long-range firing units to the Philippines will impose greater costs on China,\u201d said Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, an associate professor at Tokyo International University Institute for International Strategy and a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council\u2019s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative. \u201cBoth locations are vital to deter China\u2019s aggressive moves in not only the Taiwan Strait and East China Seas, but also Beijing\u2019s ambitions in the Pacific. Still, one can expect China to do more to outdo such measures by enhancing their military readiness and conducting more assertive activities in the coming years,\u201d he said. Taiwan and the Philippines, as well as Japan and Indonesia, make up what China calls the first island chain potentially blocking its military access to the Pacific. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin concluded a nine-day trip to the Indo-Pacific on Monday after a series of meetings with the defense heads of countries in the region, including Japan, the Philippines, Australia and South Korea. At the meetings, Japan agreed to increase its participation in annual trilateral amphibious training with the U.S. and Australia. The Philippines agreed to share military intelligence by signing a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0A U.S. plan to deploy sophisticated missiles on a Japanese island chain close to Taiwan is prompting angry responses from both China and its close ally Russia. The United States is drawing up a joint military plan with Japan to deploy High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and other weapons to Japan\u2019s Nansei Islands, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":495,"featured_media":25816,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/495"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobbinghood.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}