Japan wants to relax its arms export policy and seek military loosening.

　　Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, June 28th

　　Xinhua News Agency reporter Shen Honghui

　　The joint working group on the revision of the "Three Principles of Defence Equipment Transfer" established by the ruling Coalition of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party, recently held a private meeting to roughly finalize the revision direction.

　　Analysts pointed out that according to the revised plan, Japan’s existing "three principles of defense equipment transfer" and its detailed rules for interpretation will undergo great changes, and even the export restrictions on anti-personnel weapons will be lifted. Behind this change lies the Japanese government’s intention to break through the post-war military restrictions, which will bring unstable factors to regional peace and stability.

　　Brewing is greatly relaxed

　　According to Japanese media reports, the revision directions finalized by the joint working group on the revision of the "Three Principles of Defence Equipment Transfer" at the meeting on the 21st of this month include: the current principles stipulate that weapons can only be exported for the purpose of "benefiting Japan’s national security", and the purpose of "assisting the invaded country" is added to the discussion plan; According to the current principle, Japan can only export five kinds of weapons, such as "rescue" and "transportation", which are mainly logistics types. The seminar plan will add "demining" and "training", or directly abolish the classification and completely lift the ban on the export of weapons including anti-personnel weapons; The current principle prohibits the transfer of equipment jointly developed by Japan and other countries to a third party, and the seminar proposes to relax this ban.

　　After World War II, Japan promulgated the "Three Principles of Arms Export", which prohibited arms export. In recent years, Japan has repeatedly broken through the original restrictions. In 2014, during the reign of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the "Three Principles of Defence Equipment Transfer" was introduced to replace the original "Three Principles of Arms Export", which greatly relaxed Japan’s restrictions on exporting armaments and technologies for decades.

　　In December last year, the government led by Prime Minister kishida fumio issued a new version of the National Security Assurance Strategy and other three security policy documents, clearly proposing to revise the "Three Principles of Defence Equipment Transfer" and its detailed rules to further expand arms exports. In April this year, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party set up a joint working group to conduct several rounds of secret room consultations, and finally formed the above plan.

　　Analysts pointed out that although this revision plan is still under discussion, Japan’s policy trend of substantially relaxing arms exports has been determined.

　　Seek military loosening

　　Restricting arms exports is the core policy principle of Japan’s pacifist constitutional concept. At the end of last year, the new version of the third document on security policy completely abandoned the principle of "defending exclusively". This seminar has once again confirmed that Japan wants to break through the post-war military taboos.

　　Analysts pointed out that expanding arms exports is an important tool for the Kishida government to achieve the so-called "military normalization" goal. The kishida government created the OSA project, which includes the budget of about 2 billion yen this year to assist the military construction of the Philippines and other four countries. OSA should be carried out according to the "three principles of defense equipment transfer". A substantial relaxation of the three principles will eliminate the obstacles faced by the Kishida government in implementing OSA.

　　In fact, the specific cases exposed by the Japanese media related to the relaxation of arms exports all reflect the strong military objectives of the Japanese government. For example, lifting the ban on exporting weapons to the "invaded country" means considering exporting lethal weapons to Ukraine in exchange for NATO’s "entry into Asia" by expanding aid to Ukraine.

　　In addition, the Japanese government hopes to boost its military industry by relaxing restrictions on the transfer of weapons and equipment. Due to export restrictions, Japan’s military industry can’t enjoy the international military market dividend, and it has been in trouble in recent years. Japan has decided to jointly develop a new generation of fighters with Britain and Italy, and relaxing the arms export standards is intended to serve such projects.

　　Arouse widespread opposition

　　Although the joint working group on the revision of the "Three Principles of Defence Equipment Transfer" is composed of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komeito Party, the Liberal Democratic Party has pushed for the expansion of arms exports, causing concern among the ruling ally Komeito Party. Natsuo Yamaguchi, a representative of Komeito Party, said that the Japanese people don’t want to see weapons made in Japan being used to kill people, and hope that the Joint Working Group will pay attention to this public opinion.

　　There are also many opposition voices in Japanese society. Aoi Weifan, a professor at Japan Academy University, said that the Japanese Constitution renounces war and pursues pacifism, and Japanese public opinion will never condone the use of Japanese-made weapons for killing people. Recently, some people claimed that the export of "weapons of mass destruction has not been banned". This statement can appear because the whole policy revision process is a secret room negotiation without consideration by Congress. This practice of modifying and explaining the export of anti-personnel weapons by cleverness is absolutely unacceptable.

　　In an editorial, Japan’s Asahi Shimbun pointed out that if weapons of destruction are provided, it will not only violate the principle of pacifism, but also have a wide impact and aggravate regional tensions. Red Flag, an organ newspaper of Japanese communist party, commented that promoting and expanding arms exports is a part of the Kishida government’s efforts to build a military country, and this dangerous plot cannot be allowed to succeed.