Japan has overhauled its overseas arms transfer regulations, a move analysts said paves the way for the country to export high-end weapons and defence platforms, including sixth-generation fighter jets. On April 21, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced that her cabinet had amended the Three Principles on Transfer of Defence Equipment and Technology and the accompanying implementation guidelines that had constituted Japan’s framework for controlling military hardware and technology...
The Pentagon is considering outsourcing warship design and building to South Korea and Japan with a proposed US$1.85 billion feasibility study into the project, according to US media reports. The study – included in the 2027 budget – will look at the feasibility of adopting or co-producing advanced hulls such as Japan’s Mogami-class and South Korea’s Daegu-class frigates to supplement the US Navy’s overstretched production lines, USNI News reported on Friday. If the plan goes ahead it will be...
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is pursuing the first ever revision of her country’s post-World War II pacifist constitution, a step that observers say is likely to be welcomed in Washington and condemned in Beijing. Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) secured a historic two-thirds majority in the National Diet’s lower house in February’s election, passing the threshold needed to pass constitutional amendments without other parties’ support. “An independent constitutional amendment...
Japan’s public has once again signalled strong support for a woman ascending to the Chrysanthemum Throne, but Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female leader, is pushing in a different direction. A Mainichi newspaper poll published on Wednesday found that 61 per cent of respondents believed the law should be changed to allow a woman to become emperor, against just 9 per cent who said the throne should remain reserved for a man. The emperor is defined in the 1947 constitution as...