Japan’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it’s developing with Britain and Italy to other countries, in the latest move away from the country’s postwar pacifist principles.
The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project and part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security.
The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to countries other than the partners.
Japan is next to two authoritarian nuclear armed countries that are both losing ground in geopolitics and have been for a long time. Now they can be all like, “these are just the jets we sell to other people, imagine how much better ours are”