Japan to Drop Arms Export Ban
Bradley Perrett perrett@aviationweek.com
Beijing
Japan will drop its blanket ban on arms exports in a potentially far-reaching move that should result in the country finally beginning to integrate itself with the military industries of Western democracies.
After decades of trying to go it alone or seeking only inward technology transfer, Japan will now accept joint development and production of weapons.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, is reportedly urging Tokyo to buy the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning as its next fighter. An end to the arms export ban may open the way for Japan to help build the F-35 or, perhaps more feasibly, its rivals in Japan's F-X fighter contest.
And in a separate move that suggests Japan is becoming a little less pacifist, an influential group within the ruling Liberal Democratic will propose that the country's armed forces should be allowed to strike enemy bases as an act of self-defense.
North Korea's second test of a nuclear bomb May 25 seems only able to heighten the chances of the government accepting the concept of defensive strikes on enemy territory. But the idea remains highly controversial.
The blanket ban has been in place since 1976, although the government has bent its own rules so it could help the United States work on ballistic-missile defense systems. The ban is a policy, not a law, so the government can change it just by saying so.
After the change, which the cabinet agreed to on May 23, Japan will continue to prohibit arms exports to countries that support terrorism, abuse human rights, or do not properly control their own imports and exports. The exclusion of human-rights abusers as export customers could continue to present problems for participation in some Western projects, depending on how strictly Tokyo regarded the issue.
The end of the export ban is aimed at cutting costs and stimulating the Japanese defense industry, says the Nikkei business newspaper, in a report evidently based on an official briefing. Next-generation fighters are an example of where the country can achieve savings and industrial advantages by doing away with the ban, it says.
Japan is considering six types for its planned order of about 50 fighters to replace its remaining two squadrons of McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms in the air-defense mission: Lockheed's Joint Strike Fighter and F-22 Raptor, the Eurofighter Typhoon, the Dassault Rafale and the Boeing F-15FX Eagle and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The U.S. Congress has previously struck down efforts toward exporting the Lockheed-led Raptor.
