Japan plans to deploy for the first time longer-range missiles to a military base in Kumamoto Prefecture starting next March and to another base in Shizuoka Prefecture in fiscal 2027 as part of its “counterstrike capability” to deter enemies and strike targets.

The Defense Ministry said Friday it would send the country’s domestically made Type-12 surface-to-ship extended-range missiles to the Ground Self-Defense Force’s Camp Kengun in the city of Kumamoto and later to its Camp Fuji in Oyama, Shizuoka Prefecture.

Defense Minister Gen Nakatani told a news conference Friday ahead of the announcement that the deployments were necessary to defend against threats targeting Japanese territory, “including those targeting our islands, from outside our territory.”

“This means possessing the necessary and sufficient capabilities to intercept and neutralize such threats from multiple locations nationwide, regardless of where an incursion occurs,” he added.

Nakatani said the deployments would “instill in any adversary targeting any part of Japan the understanding that an attack using naval vessels or landing forces will be reliably thwarted.”

The deployments come as the Chinese military ramps up its training around Japan’s far-flung islands near Taiwan and continues to exercise even further from China’s periphery and well into the Pacific Ocean.

The moves are also seen as a response to nuclear-armed North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated missile program.

The ground-launched, upgraded versions of the Type-12 missiles will have a range of about 1,000 kilometers, putting China’s coastline and much of the East China Sea — including the waters northeast of Taiwan — within striking distance from the Kumamoto base. Nearly all of North Korea would also fall within range.

The ministry also announced that the ship-launched and aircraft-launched variants of the missiles will enter service in fiscal 2027, a year earlier than planned. The ship-launched version will be deployed aboard the recently refitted Teruyuki destroyer based in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, while the air-fired variant will be sent to the Air Self-Defense Force's Hyakuri Air Base in Omitama, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Japan will also be moving up the deployment of its cutting-edge Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile, intended for island defense, to Camp Fuji this fiscal year. In fiscal 2026, the weapon will be deployed with new operational units at Camp Kamifurano in the town of Kamifurano, Hokkaido, and Camp Ebino in the city of Ebino, Miyazaki Prefecture.

Japan’s 2022 National Security Strategy paved the way for the ostensibly pacifist country to acquire the controversial counterstrike capabilities. The government has long viewed the capability as constitutional so long as three conditions for the use of force are met: that an armed attack has occurred or is imminent; that there is no other way to halt an attack; and that the use of force is limited to the minimum necessary.

One option for this capability is to employ standoff missiles, as the weapons are known, that allow it to attack from outside an enemy’s range. However, critics say their deployment would effectively turn the bases where they are located into retaliatory targets for enemies.

China’s Defense Ministry earlier this year criticized news of the potential deployments, calling the moves “dangerous” and saying that Tokyo has repeatedly breached its commitments under the pacifist constitution and moved further down the path of military enhancement.”

North Korea, meanwhile, slammed the moves in state-run media earlier this month, describing Japan as "prepossessed with becoming a military power."

“Through military buildup and reorganization, as well as schemes for force modernization, Japan is approaching a situation where it can put an invasion war into action," the official Korean Central News Agency claimed.