Japan and the US are set this week to agree to jointly develop an interceptor missile to counter hypersonic warheads being developed by China, Russia and North Korea, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported yesterday.
The agreement on interceptors to target weapons designed to evade existing ballistic missile defenses is expected when US President Joe Biden meets Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the US on Friday, the report said, without giving any source for the information.
Officials at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment outside business hours.
Photo: Reuters
Unlike typical ballistic warheads, which fly on predictable trajectories as they fall from space to their targets, hypersonic projectiles can change course, making them more difficult to target.
Biden and Kishida are to meet the sidelines of a trilateral summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, the Yomiuri said.
Washington and Tokyo in January agreed to consider developing the interceptor at a meeting of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin with Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoshimasa Hayashi and Japanese Minister of Defense Yasukazu Hamada.
An agreement would be the second such collaboration in missile defense technology.
Japan and the US developed a longer-range missile designed to hit warheads in space, which Japan is deploying on warships in the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula to guard against North Korean missiles strikes.
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