Late last month news broke of the timetable for Japan to test its new long-range missile. Naval News reports that the island defense anti-ship missile (or new SSM) being developed by Kawasaki Heavy Industries will have its first flight in 2027. The missile’s reported maximum range is 2,500 kilometers, although this number should be treated carefully at this stage in its development.
Naval News reports that Japan is simultaneously working on a surface-to-surface, or ground attack, missile, but a Japanese spokesperson said the two missiles are different projects. It is obvious, however, that unless and until Japan announces that the surface-to-surface missile has a dramatically shorter range than the new SSM, observers will speculate and assume that it will be broadly similar if not identical in specifications.
Another Japanese project is the Hyper-Velocity Gliding Projectile (HGVP). Generally speaking, hypersonic glide vehicles use a booster rocket to launch into the upper atmosphere, then glide back to Earth at speeds higher than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. Their ability to change their trajectory, unlike a ballistic missile, makes them far harder for air defense systems to defeat. China already has one hypersonic gliding weapon in service and is testing more.
What is eye catching about Japan’s HGVP is that it is rushing an “Early Deployment Version (Block 1)” variant into service for 2026, with a range of 900 kilometers, while continuing work on “Enhanced Capability Versions (Block 2A and Block 2B)” with ranges of 2000 kilometers and 3000 kilometers, respectively. This shows that the deteriorating security environment around Japan is forcing acquisition to proceed apace.
Among all this development, Japan and Australia announced in September that they plan to “enhance cooperation on long-range missile capabilities.” Exactly how this would relate to the Japanese development efforts described above is as yet unclear.
Apart from developing indigenous systems, Japan is also acquiring similarly ranged capabilities from the U.S. In July of this year, Japan agreed to acquire 50 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles-Extended Range (JASSM-ERs) for its air force. These cruise missiles have a range of 900 kilometers.
Japan has also announced that it will buy 400 American Tomahawk cruise missiles, to be delivered starting in 2025. This is a year earlier than a previously announced purchase, and Japan will actually shift its acquisition to include 200 less-advanced Block IV Tomahawks, indicating the urgency with which it seeks to fill its long-range strike need. Tomahawk Block IV has a range of 1,600 kilometers. The missile will be fielded by Japanese navy ships.
Clearly, China is not so happy that Japan is acquiring all these capabilities. But it is also somewhat controversial within Japan, where the “pacifist constitution” was perceived to prohibit Japan from acquiring long-range or offensive systems, until then Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government announced many of these acquisitions in 2022. With such long ranges, it has inevitably been pointed out that the missiles could reach deep inland into China from Japan. This may be one reason why Japan prefers to talk about “counterstrike” capabilities.
As for Taiwan, its own long-range strike capabilities remain shrouded in mystery, or at least undetailed reporting. The jewel in the crown might be the Hsiung Sheng (雄昇) land-attack cruise missile, which Janes reports has a 225 kilogram warhead, a speed of Mach 0.85 and a maximum range of 1,200 kilometers, enough to strike far into eastern China.
The Hsiung Sheng is often called the Hsiung Feng IIE (雄風二E) HF-2E, implying that it is a variant of the Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missile, but the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reports that this nomenclature was simply to conceal the nature of the project during development, and that the Hsiung Sheng is fundamentally a different missile. CSIS sources giving very different specifications for the HF-2 and HF-2E missiles support this conclusion. However, Taiwanese media Liberty Times reported on a 2022 Legislative Yuan budget plan that stated Hsiung Feng II and Hsieng Sheng missiles are being assembled on the same production line, which calls this into question.
Meanwhile, in 2023 it was announced that the Taiwanese air force had received new Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missiles, with a range of more than 2,000 kilometers, but of these very little else is known. Despite this there has been much breathless talk about the ability of Taipei to strike Beijing. Taiwanese media Liberty Times has also reported on an unnamed, unannounced ballistic missile developed by Taiwan, one variant of which has a range of more than 1000 kilometers. However, this is the extent of the public information on this system. It’s unclear if this missile ever entered service, or if it has any relation to the canceled Tian Ma (天馬) program of the 1970s.
The Taiwanese armed forces also maintain many other medium-range strike missiles, including air launched cruise missiles and the newly acquired HIMARS platform that has seen such success in Ukraine, but these all have ranges much below 1,000 kilometers. There is no known Taiwanese hypersonic glide vehicle weapon in development, but then again it is clear that in these matters Taipei keeps its cards closer to its chest than Tokyo does.
Of course, it could be argued that if Taiwan ever needs to fight a war, most of the targets it needs to strike will not be much further away than the width of the strait, whereas Japan has outlying islands that are much more far flung, and greater distances to Chinese or North Korean targets it might need to hit. However, this ignores the fact that the Chinese military would be operating out of ports and airfields far away from the strait as well as close to it, and that there might be logistical or strategic targets further inland for Taiwan as well.
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