Russia, China Warn Japan over U.S. Typhon Missile Deployment

Russia and China have separately warned Japan over its decision to allow the United States to deploy the “Typhon” intermediate-range missile system during joint military exercises in Japan next month.

Both governments said the move threatens regional security and could provoke countermeasures.

“We view this as another destabilizing step as part of Washington’s course toward ramping up the potential of ground-based shorter and intermediate-range missiles,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday, according to state-run media. She added that deploying Typhon missiles near Russia poses a “direct strategic threat.”

Zakharova said Moscow has taken note of Japan’s “accelerated militarization” and growing defense cooperation with the U.S. She warned that if Tokyo does not reconsider the deployment, Russia “will have to take appropriate military-technical measures” and that “the entire responsibility for the further degradation of the situation in the region rests on the Japanese side.”

China also urged Japan to halt the plan. “China always opposes the United States deploying the Typhon Mid-Range Capability missile system in Asian countries,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Friday at a press briefing in Beijing, reported by state media.

Guo said the deployment “undermines the legitimate security interests of other countries and poses a substantive threat to regional strategic security.” He called on Japan to “take a hard look at its history of aggression, follow the path of peaceful development, act prudently in military and security areas, and refrain from further losing the trust of its Asian neighbors and the international community.”

The Typhon system, capable of launching SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles with ranges up to 2,000 kilometers, will be positioned about 40 kilometers southeast of Hiroshima during the U.S.-Japan “Resolute Dragon” exercises scheduled for September 11–25. Around 1,900 U.S. and 12,300 Japanese troops are expected to participate.

This would mark the third deployment of the Typhon system in the Western Pacific. The U.S. Army tested it in Australia last month and previously sent it to the Philippines in 2024. Since leaving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, Washington has sought to position such systems across Asia to strengthen its deterrence against China.