The ship-slaying missiles of the Japanese army’s Seventh Regiment are mounted aboard dark green trucks that are easy to move and conceal, but for now, the soldiers are making no effort to hide them.
Created a year ago, the fledgling regiment and its roving missile batteries occupy a hilltop base on the island of Okinawa that can be seen for miles.
The visibility is intentional. The Seventh is one of two new missile regiments that the army, called the Ground Self-Defence Force, has placed along the islands on Japan’s southwestern flank in response to an increasingly robust Chinese navy that frequently sails through waters near Japan.
“Our armaments are a show of force to deter an enemy from coming,” said Col. Yohei Ito, the regiment’s commander.
China is not their only target. The display is also for the US, and particularly President Trump, who has criticised Japan for relying too heavily on the presence of American military bases for its security.
The missiles are part of a defence buildup that is central to Japan’s strategy for appealing to President Trump. While Tokyo is now deep in negotiations with Washington over lifting new tariffs, its top priority is improving security ties. On Friday, Japan’s trade envoy, Ryosei Akazawa, met for two and a half hours in Washington with treasury secretary Scott Bessent and Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, for talks on a tariff-lifting deal that will probably see Tokyo promise large purchases of energy, computer chips and weapons.
By adding new missiles and other advanced weapons, both American-made and domestically developed, Japan is transforming its long-restricted military into a potent force with the skills and technology to operate alongside America’s ships and soldiers, to demonstrate that Japan is an indispensable partner.
“We want to be sure the US has our backs, and enhancing our conventional military capabilities is the way to do that,” said Nobukatsu Kanehara, who was deputy head of national security policy from 2014 to 2019 under then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “We want to show President Trump that we are a valuable and essential ally.”
