TOKYO — Residents of Yonaguni, the Japanese island 110 kilometres from Taiwan, have been asked to stay off the roads while military equipment is moved through Kubura Port for Keen Sword, the US-Japan exercise that opened on Monday. Defense News reported on Oct. 5 that the island’s local government remained opposed to the drills and was still talking to the Defense Ministry.
TASS said in a Tokyo dispatch stamped 03:12 GMT on Oct. 19 that the exercise runs to Oct. 29 and stretches from waters near Taiwan to Hokkaido, while Taipei complains about Chinese ships around Taiwan. It put the force at about 45,000 Japanese troops and 12,000 US service members, and attributed both figures to a Japanese news agency.
The new element is hardware. According to TASS, Japan will for the first time take its Type 25 mobile missiles, with a range of about 1,000 kilometres, outside their base in Kumamoto Prefecture, and the US Marine Corps will bring its NMESIS anti-ship launcher and MADIS air-defence system to Yonaguni for the first time. TASS said actual missile launches are not planned.
The distances matter. Defense News reported that NMESIS can strike targets at around 115 miles, which by TEH’s arithmetic is roughly 185 kilometres, further than the 110 kilometres to Taiwan. The outlet wrote that this could threaten ships in the waters around Taiwan, and that Chinese military experts have criticised the deployment.
Japan’s own paperwork is quieter. The Joint Staff announcement of Sept. 29 lists 15 training events, among them “Bilateral Joint Offensive Anti-Ship Operations Training”, and a Japanese scale of about 45,000 personnel, 6,100 vehicles, 40 vessels and 260 aircraft. The words Taiwan, Yonaguni and China do not appear in it, by TEH’s text search of the PDF. It gives no US troop number.
Participant counts appear to differ only by who is counted. The Joint Staff lists the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the Philippines. TASS says seven other countries are expected to take part, and Defense News, citing Japan’s Ministry of Defense, says nine. Seven partners plus the United States and Japan make nine by TEH’s count.
On the island, Defense News reported that Mayor Tsuneo Uechi said Yonaguni was not ready for large-scale exercises beyond its capacity, and that he told a Japanese newspaper on Oct. 2 that the V-22 Osprey would not take part. Local officials told the outlet the drill had been scaled back from a larger plan after opposition.
What none of these documents settles is whether the launchers are on Yonaguni yet. TASS says the Marines will deploy them. TEH found no US or Japanese statement saying they have landed, and the Joint Staff notice never names the island.
