Japan and the US have reached out to each other to conduct joint research to find ways to defeat high-tech weaponry.
While the United States is rushing to develop a missile that will compete with similarly developed platforms in China and Russia, The Pentagon has agreed with Japan to cooperate with them.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his Japanese counterpart Yasukazu Hamada at the Pentagon headquarters on Wednesday, where they discussed future military coordination between the two nations and focused on China’s “coercive actions” toward Taiwan in recent weeks.
“The ministers concurred that Japan and the United States would further accelerate cooperation in the area of equipment and technology to ensure technological edge of the alliance,”Includes “joint analysis on counter-hypersonic technology,”The Japanese Defense Ministry released a statement.
It was noted by the ministry that Washington and Tokyo were both in consideration. “cooperate closely and seamlessly”To prevent anything “unilateral change in the status quo” in the Indo-Pacific region, where American warships frequently conduct ‘freedom of navigation’ missions through contested waters claimed by Beijing.
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Pentagon plans hypersonic tech
Austin and Hamada “strongly condemned China’s ballistic missile launches in early August,”Tokyo claimed that some projectiles were landed in its economic zone (EEZ). The two also accused Beijing of provocative military drills near Taiwan – which China considers part of its own territory – following a visit to the island by US House speaker Nancy Pelosi last month.
In the Pentagon’s readout of Wednesday’s meeting, Austin vowed to “modernize the US-Japan alliance, bolster integrated deterrence, and further cooperate with like-minded partners to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific,”Although hypersonic technology was not mentioned in the release,
The US Defense Establishment has long had several designs of hypersonic weapons in its arsenal, but none of them have ever been used. The Air Force declared the hypersonic AGM-183A Air-launched Quick Response Weapon (ARRW), operational after a May test. “major accomplishment,”Although the missile did not reach Mach 20, it was 20 times slower than sound.
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China, too, is working on a hypersonic munition, which it has test-fired on a number of occasions, while Russia’s hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal has been in service for several years, seeing its first real-world operational deployments during the conflict with Ukraine.
