Japan wants to become an armaments nation

Japanese tanks and amphibious vehicles

Expensive Armor: A Japanese tank costs three times as much as a German Leopard.

(Photo: IMAGO/AFLO)

Tokyo From a weak armaments location to an export nation for weapons and fighter jets: that is the goal of Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The government had already heralded the about-face in December, when it announced that it would be developing a combat aircraft for the first time since World War II without the USA as a cooperation partner.

By 2035, the high-tech nation now wants to have a fighter jet ready for use with Great Britain and Italy. To this end, the three partners are merging the British-Italian Tempest project with Japan’s plans for a successor to the F-2 fighter.

Strengthening the defense industry is part of Japan’s new defense strategy unveiled by Prime Minister Kishida in mid-December. Despite protests from Beijing, Japan also wants to buy missiles for counterattacks on Chinese, North Korean and Russian military bases. Japan would thus have the world’s third-largest armaments budget after the USA and China – and one beneficiary of the sudden flood of money will be Japan’s armaments industry.

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