In April 2016, the vernacular Asahi Shimbun ran a story with a headline that may translate as: “Arms export push hits a bump: Japan knocked off Australia’s submarine competition”
Australia was looking to order 12 next-generation submarines from abroad, and decided to order them from a French industrial group specializing in naval defense design.
Competing in this “arms sales war,” the total value of which was estimated at around 4.3 trillion yen ($27.24 billion), were Japan, Germany and France.
I was stationed in Sydney, Australia, at the time. The local media was abuzz with reports of intense sales battles among the competitors. I interviewed a good number of officials of the Australian defense department and other experts.
My sources in Japan were optimistic, believing that Japan was “the top contender.”
In 2014, the then-Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the drastic move of allowing conditional arms exports, thereby abandoning the nation’s long-held basic policy of arms export ban.
As submarines would be Japan’s first “big ticket” exports, the Abe administration must have been thrilled with the 2016 Australian contest.
When Japan failed to win, my Australian contacts consoled me for the “unfortunate outcome.” However, I actually felt quite relieved. I just did not like the idea of exporting weapons to any country.
That was 10 years ago.
On March 6, the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) submitted to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi a proposal to scrap the weapons export ban.
Seiji Maehara of Nippon Ishin noted to the effect, “Having been made to purchase many expensive items from ‘merchants of death,’ Japan’s defense industrial base has become fragile.”
If Maehara’s suggestion is that Japan should therefore join the ranks of the merchants of death, his logic is flawed.
In an Asahi Shimbun opinion poll that was taken around the time when Japan entered the Australian submarine contest, only about 15 percent of respondents approved the expansion of Japan’s arms exports.
I recall thinking at the time that, as a nation with a pacifist Constitution, we felt a strong aversion to anything related to war.
The government is now poised to accept the ruling coalition’s March 6 proposal.
After decades of refraining from exporting weapons, is our country about to witness the collapse of the last bastion of pacifism?
—The Asahi Shimbun, March 10
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
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