China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles

The small Japanese island by Yonagunilocated just over 100 kilometers away from Taiwan, has gone in a matter of months from being a remote enclave with a modest self-defense detachment to becoming one of the most sensitive points of the strategic balance in Asia. The United States, China and Japan itself are carrying their disputes to the small enclave.

An island as a front. The intensification of chinese drone flights over the island and the strait, intercepted on two consecutive occasions by Japanese fighters, has reinforced the perception in Tokyo that the first island chain is entering a phase of chronic instability.

Japan, aware of the real possibility of a conflict around Taiwan, has decided to turn Yonaguni into a defensive node fully integrated: a place where operates a FARP American that extends the range of Marine Corps helicopters, where capabilities are consolidated electronic surveillance and where the installation of air defense missiles is progressing like the Type 03 Chu-SAM.

Weapons and more weapons. This system, capable of tracking one hundred simultaneous targets and shooting down twelve of them with Mach 2.5 missilesimplies that Japan is beginning to give teeth to a position whose mere proximity to the democratic island makes it an advanced platform to detect, deter or even respond to a possible Chinese attack.

For Tokyo, reinforcing Yonaguni is not a provocation but a life policy national: any attack on Taiwan, as as stated the new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, would constitute an existential threat to the archipelago.

Beijing’s reaction. China, which interprets any Japanese defensive measure as one more step in a strategic siege promoted by the United States, has reacted with increasing hardness. From historical comparisons to veiled threats, including the summoning of the Japanese ambassador and the suspension of economic exchanges, Beijing frames the installation of missiles in Yonaguni as an “offensive act” that violates the spirit of the bilateral normalization of 1972.

The rhetoric has gone in crescendo after Takaichi’s words about the possibility of Japan intervening militarily in the event of an attack on Taiwan, something that China considers a space invasion diplomat reserved for Washington. The climate has deteriorated to such a level that a Chinese diplomat even published (and removed) a direct threat against the prime minister, while the central government canceled meetings, stopped imports and called for boycott trips to Japansinking the influx of Chinese tourists who represented almost a third of foreign visitors. In parallel, China has intensified its military demonstrations, spreading videos YKJ-1000 hypersonic missile destroying Japanese targets, a message designed to emphasize that any expansion of the Japanese military footprint will be met with a response.

The strategic dilemma. Far from backing down, Japan has adopted a tone unusually firm. Under the leadership of Takaichi, the political heir to Shinzo Abe’s strategic nationalism, Tokyo has made Yonaguni the tangible manifestation of a doctrinal turn: accept that Japanese stability requires preventing China from dominating the Taiwan Strait. from there the proliferation of radar installations, electronic warfare capabilities and additional plans that contemplate systems such as US Patriots, US Army Typhon, HIMARS and the NMESIS equipped with NSM missiles, capable of denying access to Chinese ships around the Taiwanese eastern coast.

USA discreetly supports this redesign: approved sales of NASAMS and spare parts to the Taiwan Air Force, deployed CH-53E helicopters in Yonaguni (an unprecedented milestone) and coordinates with Japan a doctrine that assumes that, in the event of an outbreak of hostilities, the Marines must operate from the lethality zone itself of Chinese missiles. All of this positions Yonaguni not only as an advanced observatory, but as a critical point whose defense and survival would determine the first stages of any crisis in the strait.

Taiwan’s hardening. While Japan reinforces the front line, Taiwan assumes that time to prepare is running out. President Lai Ching-te has announced a massive increase in military spending, raising it by $40 billion until 2033, with a roadmap that will place it at 3.3% of GDP in 2026 and with the declared ambition of reaching 5% before 2030.

What Taipei is proposing is not a simple rearmament, but a comprehensive redesign: new missiles and drones, integrating AI into existing systems, protecting against infiltration operations, dramatically improving procurement (often delayed in the United States), and measures against transnational Chinese repression targeting Taiwanese abroad. For Lai, the most dangerous threat is not a Chinese landing but internal erosion: that Taiwan “gives up” due to psychological or economic pressure. It flatly rejects the “one country, two systems” model and affirms that the only way to maintain peace is to make an invasion too costly for Beijing. The United States, through its de facto representation, has described the decision as a crucial step to strengthen deterrence.

A strategic powder keg. The juxtaposition of Japanese military movements, Chinese threats and unprecedented rearmament of Taiwan produces a “traffic” that raises the risk of calculation errors. The experts warn that a poorly calibrated comment, a overflight unreported or a maritime incident could accelerate a spiral that is difficult to contain, especially when Beijing tries to use its contacts with Washington to simultaneously pressure Tokyo and Taipei.

In this context, Yonaguni becomes symbol and detonator: too close to Taiwan to be irrelevant, too exposed to be invulnerable, and too strategic for either side to relinquish control or influence. Plus: the island is both within immediate range of Chinese missiles and within the American concept of advanced distributed operationsmeaning it could be both a multiplier of Allied defense and a priority objective in the first minute of a war.

A fragile balance. In short, China hardens his stanceJapan resignation definitely to ambiguity, Taiwan accelerate the shielding of its sovereignty and the United States consolidates its role as operational guarantor. In the midst of all this, Yonaguni emerges as a microcosm where the resistance of that regional order is tested.

An enclave of barely 1,700 inhabitants that, due to its geographical positionhas become a thermometer, border and barrier. Its immediate future (missile deployment, American presence, Chinese retaliation, Taiwanese cooperation) will define not only the security of the strait, but to what extent the Indo-Pacific can prevent the buildup of forces from leading to the conflict that everyone fears but, just in case, everyone is preparing to wage.

Image | Tokyo-GoodUS ARMY, Paipateroma, PicrylGoogle Earth

In Xataka | China has drawn a very clear red line to Japan: being an ally of the United States is good, supporting Taiwan is bad.

In Xataka | Communist countries have a very long tradition of military purges. And China is joining it