The United States should approve Taiwan's request for approval to buy a long range early warning radar system, inasmuch as such a system is purely defensive in nature, is necessary to effective civil and missile defense, and is clearly warranted by China's deliberate build-up of ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan. Summary of Findings Patriot air defense systems are currently deployed in both Japan and South Korea, Japan currently has four Aegis-equipped ships, and Taiwan currently has a missile defense system based on the Patriot design. Interest in deploying more advanced missile defense systems when they become available is very high in both the Japanese and Taiwanese governments, and with U.S. military commanders in South Korea. South Korea has relatively less interest in more advanced missile defense systems, primarily because it perceives such systems as not only costly, but also ineffective against the artillery that threatens Seoul and the SCUD missiles that can reach the rest ofSouth Korea. Neither Japan nor South Korea is eager to anger China by entering into a regional missile defense system that extends to Taiwan.
History also limits prospects for missile defense cooperation between Japan and South Korea.
Indeed, there is some concern in South Korea that Japan's growing interest in ballistic missile defense may foreshadow a Japanese military build-up. However, South Korea, like all countries in the region, would prefer that Japan develop a missile defense capability to counter the threat of North Korean missile attack if, in the absence of such capability, Japan would feel compelled to develop a pre-emptive or retaliatory capability sufficient to deter North Korea from launching a missile attack. Japan and South Korea might be interested in developing a joint early warning system with the United States to collect and share early warning data obtained by all three countries. Such a system could resemble the joint early warning program that the United States and Russia agreed to establish at the Clinton-Yeltsin Summit on September 1, 1998. Even in the absence of a common threat, the United States and Russia concluded that such cooperation would build confidence and enhance the security of both countries.