U.S. to send long-range surveillance drones to Japan amid Taiwan tensions
The U.S. military will deploy several long-range surveillance drones to Okinawa Prefecture, near Japan's far-flung southwestern islands area near Taiwan, as the allies seek to counter China's ramped-up drone presence in the same area.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Tuesday that the U.S. MQ-4C Triton drones will be sent to the U.S. air base in Kadena, on Okinawa's main island, in the coming weeks.
'This deployment is expected to enhance the Japan-U.S. alliance's intelligence-gathering capabilities and, by extension, the alliance's deterrence and response capabilities,' Nakatani told a news conference.
The Triton drones are capable of operating at altitudes above 50,000 feet, for 24-plus hours with a range of 7,400 nautical miles (13,700 kilometers), according to producer Northrop Grumann.
Last year, the U.S. military temporarily deployed two MQ-4Cs at the Kadena base for about five months from May.
The U.S. Air Force said in 2023 that 'Kadena's strategic position makes it an invaluable location to stage ISR operations, enabling access to numerous potential flashpoints across the Indo-Pacific region.'
The Japanese defense chief hinted that the deployment would provide a needed boost amid the uptick in Chinese military activity near the southwestern islands, noting that 'the security environment surrounding our country is becoming increasingly severe.'
As China heaps military pressure on Taiwan, the democratic island it claims as its own — and has vowed to bring back into the fold, by force if necessary — it has also sent its drones closer to Japanese territory.
Nakatani said last week that flights by Chinese drones around Japan in fiscal 2024 had totaled 30 — a figure that he said was 'significantly higher than the four drones confirmed in fiscal 2021.'
But Nakatani also said that the Chinese military had been sending the drones closer and closer to Japan, with the defense chief noting that the range of this activity 'has also shown a tendency to expand significantly.'
Since April 2023, the Defense Ministry said it had confirmed drone flights between Yonaguni Island and Taiwan — which had until then not been seen — as well as flights off the coast of Amami Oshima, in Kagoshima Prefecture.
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