The US Army on Tuesday shot a Tomahawk missile from its Typhon Mid-Range Capability launcher system in the Philippines during a military exercise, marking the first time it has fired such a weapon since the system’s arrival in the country two years ago, which drew a rebuke from China.

Built by Lockheed Martin, the Typhon system had been flown 13,000km (8,000 miles) from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state to Luzon in the Philippines as part of a military exercise called Salaknib and there it has remained as a strategic asset.

The army has practised moving it around the rough, hot terrain but stopped short of firing it in previous exercises.

Typhon was “highly requested by a number of our partners and allies and it’s at their request that we deploy”, General Ronald Clark, the US Army Pacific commander, said in an interview on Monday. “It’s a pretty strategic deterrent capability.”

The American and Filipino militaries have continued to build on a long-enduring relationship with the annual exercise known as Balikatan, which has continued to develop in size, scale and complexity in recent years.