The United States reportedly deployed a Global Hawk unmanned surveillance aircraft at its Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on September first. It is the first Global Hawk to have been deployed in the Pacific region.

Japan’s Kyodo News said that the deployment is aimed at monitoring North Korea and China, which is expanding its presence in the East China Sea and South China Sea.

The U.S. Air Force plans to dispatch two more Global Hawks to the base early next year.

The Global Hawk is a remotely piloted reconnaissance aircraft equipped with a state-of-the-art radar system and an infrared detector. It can fly for 40 hours at an altitude of 18-thousand meters.