Shinjiro Koizumi, who was reappointed because the protection minister within the Cabinet of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, on the Prime Minister’s Office in Tokyo, February 18, 2026. /CFP
Editor’s observe:Â Cao Cong, a particular commentator for CGTN, is a doctoral candidate on the School of International Politics and Economics, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article displays the writer’s opinions and never essentially the views of CGTN.
On February 25, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan’s Research Commission on Security permitted at occasion headquarters a draft proposal to chill out guidelines on the export of protection tools. According to media stories, the draft, in precept, permits the export of weapons and tools with deadly and damaging capabilities, together with fighter jets and destroyers, and leaves coverage house for exporting weapons to nations at present engaged in battle beneath “special circumstances.”
The proposal is predicted to be submitted to the federal government as early as March and should result in revisions to the implementation tips of the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology this spring. This growth will mark a serious breakthrough in Japan’s army and safety coverage and warrant excessive vigilance from Asian neighbors and the worldwide group.
For a very long time, Japan has maintained comparatively restrained institutional preparations concerning arms exports. The present implementation tips restrict permitted protection tools exports to 5 non-combat classes: rescue, transport, warning, surveillance, and minesweeping. The proposed elimination of this restriction won’t solely ease institutional constraints on deadly weapons exports however can even open the floodgates politically for exporting arms to battle zones.
Although the draft nonetheless claims that exports to nations at present engaged in battle are “prohibited in principle,” it supplies an exception “when special circumstances are taken into consideration, national security needs.” It additionally centralizes evaluation authority within the National Security Council, eliminating the necessity for cupboard approval or Diet participation as a essential situation. In the face of broad exceptions and weakened procedures, the so-called “principle” seems more and more fragile.
Some Japanese political figures have linked the comfort of export guidelines to “supporting the defense industry” and “strengthening defense capabilities,” even utilizing it to magnify exterior tensions and claiming that Japan should “not yield to external pressure.” The actual challenge, nonetheless, is whether or not Japan is utilizing safety as a pretext to put the institutional basis for the outward enlargement of its army capabilities. Once weapons like fighter jets and destroyers turn out to be routine export commodities, Japan’s protection business will turn out to be deeply embedded within the international arms commerce community.
It can be noteworthy that the draft clearly categorizes protection tools into “weapons” (deadly, designed to kill and destroy) and “non-weapons” (non-lethal, corresponding to bulletproof vests and helmets), limiting weapons exports to nations which have signed protection tools and expertise switch agreements with Japan. Such an settlement framework may simply turn out to be deeply tied to particular safety blocs, forming unique army cooperation networks.
Japan’s military test-fires a Type 88 surface-to-ship short-range missile on the Shizunai Anti-Air Firing Range on Japan’s northern primary island of Hokkaido in its first missile check on Japanese territory, June 24, 2025. /CFP
If future arms exports are linked to so-called values-based diplomacy, Japan won’t solely strengthen army coordination with allies such because the United States however may additionally intensify bloc confrontation in delicate areas, including new destabilizing elements to an already complicated regional safety surroundings.
Looking again on the post-WWII interval, each rest of Japan’s army coverage has adopted a sample of incremental breakthroughs. From increasing abroad dispatch missions after the Cold War, to the 2014 cupboard choice beneath Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to carry the ban on collective self-defense, and the enactment of Security Legislation in 2015, the operational scope of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces has repeatedly expanded.
Lin Jian, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has “urged Japan to reflect on its history of aggression, listen to the voices of its people against war and take actions to win the trust of its Asian neighbors.” This place is grounded not solely in present realities but additionally in profound historic causes.
In the primary half of the twentieth century, Japan launched into a path of militarism and launched wars of aggression towards Asian nations, together with China, bringing profound disasters to the area. The institution of Japan’s post-WWII Pacifist Constitution in 1947 was a systemic reflection of that historical past. It is exactly for that reason that Asian nations stay extremely delicate to any breakthrough in Japan’s army coverage.
Regrettably, lately, some political forces in Japan have taken a damaging perspective towards historic points, downplaying and even blurring accountability for aggression. Against the backdrop of Japan’s failure to achieve a real consensus with its Asian neighbors on historic perceptions, it has persistently undermined the spirit of its Pacifist Constitution by bolstering army capabilities and enjoyable arms export restrictions. Such coverage intentions inevitably invite exterior scrutiny.
Peace and growth stay the defining themes of our period. What the Asia-Pacific area wants is mutual belief and cooperation, not bloc confrontation and arms enlargement.
Should Japan persist in its reckless pursuit of remilitarization and new militarism, it should solely thrust itself into an more and more complicated and threatening safety surroundings. Asian nations and the worldwide group have each motive to stay vigilant and collectively safeguard the hard-won regional peace.
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Source: CGTN