China Fires Hypersonic Anti-Ship Missile From a Smaller Warship as Japan Opens New Intelligence Bureau

China demonstrated a new naval capability that adds to the pressure on the United States and its allies in the Pacific. Footage in Chinese media showed a Type 052D destroyer, a mid-sized warship, firing a YJ-20 hypersonic anti-ship missile from its vertical launch system, the South China Morning Post reported. Putting a hypersonic weapon on a smaller and more numerous class of ship extends the reach of a threat that is difficult to intercept.

Japan moved on a different front the same week. A new National Intelligence Bureau began operating on Friday, Russian business daily Kommersant reported, created at the initiative of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, alongside a National Intelligence Council that brings the head of government into a central command role for intelligence.

The two developments have the same implication. China is fielding weapons that complicate US naval operations, and Japan is building the institutions of a more capable and independent security state. Across the region, governments are expanding military and intelligence capacity in response to one another.

The result is a self-reinforcing arms competition. Each capability one side fields becomes the justification for the next investment by its neighbors, and the trend is toward more spending, more weapons and more surveillance across the Indo-Pacific.