TOKYO
\nJapan and the US will agree this week to jointly develop an interceptor missile to counter hypersonic warheads being developed by China, Russia and North Korea, Japan\u2019s Yomiuri newspaper said on Sunday.
\nThe agreement on interceptors to target weapons designed to evade existing ballistic missile defenses is expected when President Joe Biden meets Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the US on Friday, the report said, without giving any source for the information.
\nOfficials at Japan\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment outside business hours.
\nUnlike typical ballistic warheads, which fly on predictable trajectories as they fall from space to their targets, hypersonic projectiles can change course, making them more difficult to target.
\nBiden and Kishida are to meet the sidelines of a trilateral summit with South Korea\u2019s President Yoon Suk Yeol at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, the Yomiuri said.
\nThe US and Japan agreed in January to consider developing the interceptor at a meeting of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin with their Japanese counterparts, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada.
\nAn agreement would be the second such collaboration in missile defense technology.
\nWashington and Tokyo developed a longer-range missile designed to hit warheads in space, which Japan is deploying on warships in the sea between Japan and the Korean peninsula to guard against North Korean missiles strikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TOKYO Japan and the US will agree this week to jointly develop an interceptor missile to counter hypersonic warheads being developed by China, Russia and North Korea, Japan\u2019s Yomiuri newspaper said on Sunday. The agreement on interceptors to target weapons designed to evade existing ballistic missile defenses is expected when President Joe Biden meets Japanese […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-349116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n