Pacifist Japan seems to double the export of weapons

Japanknown for their Pacifist The Constitution, now sets its views on the global market export market.

Defense Minister Gen. Earlier this month, he told Nikkei that he wanted to encourage Japan’s defense export by signaling a clear change in the country’s arms policy, which is now limited to a large extent to take care of Japanese forces for self-defense or JSDF.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba also signals a more focus on the defense sector and became the first sedentary prime minister to be present DSEI JapanThe largest defense exhibition in the country.

While the change in position comes at a time when Global defense The rise is on the rise, Japan’s motivations are more related to its security problems than the profit from the jump in global weapons demand, experts told CNBC.

The biggest reason for this change is to deepen the connections and to increase the interoperability of Japanese forces with allies and partners, said Rintaro Inu, a research associate at the Institute of Geoeconomics, a cerebral trust based in Tokyo.

By exporting your weapons abroad, a The country is able to improve the interoperability With purchasing countries, by standardizing the hardware support processes and creating joint training opportunities.

“This justification is the main pillar after the Prime Minister (Shinzo) ABE created the concept of a” proactive contribution to peace “in 2013, which aims to deepen cooperation with other Western countries in this area and especially in the field of security,” he said.

When the deceased Abe was in service, he led an effort to review the interpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan to allow JSDF to more actively contribute International efforts to maintain peace and protection of allies.

Japan also wants to develop its industrial defense base, which was in “very poor conditions” before the country moves to increase its defense budget in 2022, Inu said. Exports will allow it to achieve savings needed to produce domestic production More viable.

Instead of investing in the internal defense base of Japan, the country has largely purchased a weapon from the United States, such as the F-35 and the Spy-7 radar systems.

“This has created a serious situation in the defense industry based in Japan and several companies have left the industry, especially in the supply chain,” Inoue said. In 2023, Over 100 companies were reported to leave the defense industry in the last 20 years.

Around Aoki, a political scientist at the US -based political cerebral Trust, said Japanese defense companies have traditionally been working with limited internal search by JSDF. The ability to export defense positions means that companies will have a larger customer base, helping them to develop their production capacity, to more costs and to have more flexibility.

“Even if JSDF needs more than ammunition, these companies will not want to invest in new facilities to produce more of them if they think it is a one-time request. If there is a more stable demand at a higher level, they can justify the investment,” Aoki said.

As of 2024, Japan’s exports to a weapon was 21 million TIV – only 0.1% of global arms exports – as per Stockholm International Institute for Peace Research. The value of the TIV or the tendency is a measure of the volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons.

For comparison, neighboring South Korea exported 936 million TIV in 2024, with 3.3% of weapons exports worldwide, while TIV to China, the largest Asian weapon exporter from 2020-2024 amounts to 1.13 billion, representing 3.9% of global supply.

Defense is attractive as a growth sector, according to veteran investor David Roche, a strategist at Quantum Strategy. “Search will exceed supply for a decade,” he said. So building internal capacity is paramount.

Roche said that if nations like Japan remain dependent on the US, the more transactional approach of the Trump administration will oblige them to pay much more than their own protection or defense equipment provided by the USA

Roche pointed to the US Minister of Defense Minister Pete Heget during 2025 Shangri-la dialogue, Earlier this month: “We ask – and indeed, we insist – our allies and partners play their role in defense … NATO members promise to spend 5% of GDP on defense, even Germany.”

“So it doesn’t make sense to do so, while key allies in Asia spend less defense over a more terrible threat, not to mention North Korea,” heget added.

“If they are distrust of the United States to honor his contract, then the individual nations must guarantee their own security and spend a lot of money, doing so,” Roche said.

Japan in 1967 accepted “Three principles of exporting a weapon“This limited export of weapons and later expanded these principles to practically imposed a ban on arms exports except for military technology transfers to the United States

The country eased this position under Abe, with former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida relieved the curbs in 2023.

Thehe the most changes Allow the defense equipment manufactured in Japan under a license from foreign defense companies, including finished products, be exported to the license country and from there to third countries.

For example, Japan agreed at the end of 2023 To produce – under license – and exports of Patriot Interceptor missiles to the United States, whose stocks were exhausted after the delivery of these rockets in Ukraine.

Neighbor South Korea observes a growing global interest in his Weapons industry And he strives to become a major global arms supplier. Will Japan be able to compete? Experts differ.

Roche says Japan has the knowledge, skills and technology to be a major weapon supplier, but Iog’s Inoue warns that Japan can face production problems due to its falling population and the growing share of the elderly.

“I think it is very difficult for Japan to focus on production jobs again,” he said.

Rand’s Aoki pointed to still strict provisions. “Japan has the technical capacity to do many things,” but since export provisions remain heavy, it will use exports mainly as a tool to strengthen the industrial base of defense and defense relations with adherents, especially the United States