Marines to deter China
US RAPID REACTION FORCE IN JAPAN
The US will deploy Marines armed with anti-ship missiles to a new rapid reaction force in Japan, in the latest move to deter China from attacking small Japanese islands or launching an invasion of Taiwan.
The deployment of the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa was set to be announced on Thursday (local time), after a meeting in Washington, by the US and Japanese foreign and defence ministers.
It comes in advance of a summit between President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in which they will commit themthe selves to a new approach to regional security that will result in a doubling of Tokyo’s defence budget.
“The leaders will discuss our shared vision of a modernised alliance that will tackle 21stcentury challenges in the Indo-Pacific and around the world,” the Pentagon press secretary, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, said before Mr Kishida’s visit. “China certainly will be a topic of discussion with our Japanese allies.”
The growing power and assertiveness of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is forcing countries across Asia Pacific to rethink their security strategies. Nowhere have the changes been greater than in Japan.
The constitution imposed by the US on the defeated country after the Second World War was supposed to ban it from maintaining armed forces. But legal and political changes have allowed the Japan Self-Defence Forces increasing freedom to project power beyond its shores, with American encouragement.
Last month Mr Kishida’s government announced plans to double defence spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product over five years, which would make it the third largest budget in the world. Japan is to buy American Tomahawk missiles and eventually to build long-range missiles of its own in order to be able to launch pre-emptive strikes on rocket launches from China or North Korea.
The new MLR will be made up of 2000 US marines out of the 18,000 already stationed on Okinawa. By 2025 they will be reorganised into small units armed with missiles and drones, rather than heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery.
A separate US army company of 300 soldiers and 13 vessels will be deployed to transport US and Japanese troops and equipment to islands threatened by Chinese aggression. These could include places such as the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China.
According to The Washington Post, the new regiment is expected to be equipped with an anti-ship system known as Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, or NMESIS, launched from the back of vehicles.
Tokyo and Washington have also agreed that Japanese assets in space will come under the protection of the security treaty between the two countries. This will give Japan’s surveillance satellites the same status as its national territory, which the US is obliged by treaty to defend.
Japan reported four Chinese coastguard ships sailed in waters around the Senkaku Islands on Tuesday, a routine occurrence, but the first intrusion this year in to what Tokyo regards as its territorial waters.