{"id":76494,"date":"2026-02-25T14:50:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T05:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/25\/japan-missiles-yonaguni-island-near-taiwan-2031-defence-minister"},"modified":"2026-02-25T14:50:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T05:50:27","slug":"japan-to-deploy-missiles-to-island-near-taiwan-by-2031-says-defence-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76494","title":{"rendered":"Japan to deploy missiles to island near Taiwan by 2031, says defence minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Surface-to-air missiles, which are capable of shooting down aircraft and ballistic missiles, will be located on Yonaguni, Japan\u2019s westernmost island<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/japan\">Japan<\/a> will deploy missiles to a tiny island near <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/taiwan\">Taiwan<\/a> within five years, its defence minister has said, in a move that is likely to inflame tensions with China.<\/p>\n<p>The surface-to-air missiles, which are capable of shooting down aircraft and ballistic missiles, will be located on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/may\/17\/yonaguni-island-japan-taiwan-china-relations\">Yonaguni<\/a> \u2013 Japan\u2019s westernmost island \u2013 by March 2031, Shinjiro Koizumi said.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/feb\/25\/japan-missiles-yonaguni-island-near-taiwan-2031-defence-minister\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Surface-to-air missiles, which are capable of shooting down aircraft and ballistic missiles, will be located on Yonaguni, Japan\u2019s westernmost islandJapan will deploy missiles to a tiny island near Taiwan within five years, its defence minister has said&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,88,3455,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-japan","category-sanae-takaichi","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76495,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76494\/revisions\/76495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}