Japan’s joint fighter jet project with the UK and Italy will take center stage at a defense show near Tokyo this week, as the country bolsters its defense ties with Nato members and mulls loosening controls on defense exports.
“We will gain increased exposure to global markets,” Akira Sugimoto, who heads the project for Japan’s biggest defense contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, said in an interview. MHI, a descendant of the maker of the World War II Zero fighter, will be working with BAe Systems Plc and Leonardo SpA as main contractors, while a host of other firms will also be involved.
“If you can’t export, you can’t benefit from advantages of scale,” said Nobukatsu Kanehara, a former deputy head of the National Security Secretariat, and now a professor of law at Doshisha University. “That’s why Japan’s defense industry is so weak.” Japan, which adopted a pacifist constitution under US occupation after the war, had long considered it taboo to be an arms exporter. That thinking is beginning to change as neighboring North Korea’s missile prowess grows and tensions simmer between the US, Japan’s only formal military ally, and China.
“I see this as an issue where we need to reach a conclusion,” Kishida said in parliament earlier this month when pressed on the issue.
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