Japan pushes arms exports, constitutional change in defense shift
What's new: Tokyo can now transfer lethal weapons to 17 partner countries as it weighs revising its postwar pacifist charter.
Japan is accelerating a broad defense overhaul, including expanded arms exports and a renewed push to revise its postwar pacifist constitution. Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said the changes are meant to build deterrence and reduce the risk of conflict in the Indo-Pacific as security tensions rise around China and North Korea. He pointed to relaxed export rules that now let Tokyo sell or transfer defense equipment and lethal weapons to 17 countries with formal agreements, including the United States and Britain. Koizumi said Australia has chosen Japanese warships, talks are under way with the Philippines on used destroyers, and Indonesia and New Zealand have also shown interest. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has backed revising Article 9, which renounces war.