US-Japan military drills take place amid ‘escalating tensions’ from China, Russia

The Exercise Resolute Dragon involves land, sea and air drills, and comes after a series of manoeuvres with troops from Australia, Germany and the UK

Tokyo’s military push also comes amid record defence spending that hasn’t attracted much backlash, suggesting people ‘accept it is necessary’, an analyst says

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A Japanese tank fires during an exercise in Hokkaido on December 7, 2021. Photo: AP

Published: 8:00am, 10 Dec 2021Updated: 8:43am, 10 Dec 2021

Fighter aircraft and tanks are conducting live-fire drills while a US multiple rocket system has been deployed as American and Japanese troops carry out one of their largest joint military drills in recent years.

The Exercise Resolute Dragon, which runs through December 17 at locations from Okinawa in the far south of Japan to Hokkaido in the north, involves 2,600 US Marines and some 1,400 Japanese military personnel participating in a wide range of military scenarios on land, sea and in the air.

Analysts say the drills – which come shortly after bilateral sea-air exercises in the South China Sea and in waters off Okinawa prefecture, as well as a series of manoeuvres with military units from Britain, Australia, France, the Netherlands and Germany – underline Tokyo’s desire to deepen its security and military cooperation with its allies.

Japanese troops and US Marines take part in joint drills in Miyagi prefecture on December 8, 2021. Photo: Kyodo

And while Japan is closely watching developments in North Korea and Russia – which recently deployed a battery of its Bastion coastal missile defence system to an island in the Kurils off Hokkaido, part of which Japan claims as its territory – observers say the primary target of the wide-ranging manoeuvres remains China.

“We are seeing an increase in both the number of military exercises with the US and Japan’s other partners, and a deepening of the level of the joint training in recent months and years. That is a direct result of the increased threat posed by China to the stability of the region,” said an analyst with Japan’s National Institute of Defence Studies.

“It is also interesting that the Chinese are keeping a close watch on these latest drills, with one analysis I read claiming that the exercises are a simulation of the joint response to Chinese military aggression against one of Japan’s outlying islands, which is why HIMARS was deployed,” said the analyst, who declined to be identified.

As part of the drill, the US Marine Corps carried out the first air transport within Japan of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) from Okinawa to Aomori on December 7. Once deployed, the US troops trained with a unit from Japan’s Ground Self-Defence Forces, equipped with anti-ship missile systems.

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