Arms export by Japan

Should the world let painful history repeat itself?

Step by carefully calculated step, Japan is moving toward becoming a military power ― as it was 70 years ago. Nothing shows this better than Tokyo’s decision Tuesday to throw away its 46-year-old ban on the export of weapons and military hardware.

The restrain has actually been in name only as Japan frequently shipped out military gear under various excuses of exceptions. Still its official end is a significant turnaround in Tokyo’s military and security policy.

Even now, Japan is a major military power that boasts the world’s sixth-largest defense budget. Japan’s defense industry has also grown to be a 7 billion-yen market, but it will be a matter of time before it emerges as a new growth engine, given the technological potential of the world’s third-largest economy.

In short, Tokyo’s latest measure aims at both reemerging as one of the biggest military powers and bolstering Japan’s still dormant economy.

It’s rather ironical Korea helped Japan add one more exception to its quasi-voluntary ban on weapons export when the Korean peacekeeping troops in South Sudan “borrowed” some live ammunition from their Japanese counterparts in December. As Japan will also develop weapons jointly with foreign partners, Tokyo could supply parts and components for the U.S. F-35 stealth fighters that will be sold to Korea before long.

As Japanese officials stress with increasing vigor, it may be natural for a country to want to have a regular army and be able to defend itself from external security threats. Yet Japan as a nation is like a war criminal, and one that has yet to even acknowledge, let alone repent, its wartime misdeeds, only adding insult to injury on its neighbors as victims of its imperial past. It’s similar to giving indulgence to ex-convicts who have never really regretted their acts.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long emerged as the symbol of Tokyo’s political and military ambition, which is well demonstrated by his oxymoronic use of terms. For Abe, being a normal country means becoming a country capable of waging ― even starting ― a war, and the right-leaning Japanese leader thinks his “positive pacifism” can be realized by Japan becoming a major military power. It will not be long before the scrupulous Tokyo will turn its newly-earned right to collective self-defense to a license to make a first strike.

The fiscally strained United States welcomes Japan’s self-propelled rise to America’s full-fledged defense partner that can put a check on China’s resurgence as a regional, and global, power. But it is also clear to which extent the U.S. pivot to Asia and other strategies based on using Japan as its helper can go, given Tokyo’s own ambition and its track records.

Some U.S. officials blame Korea for not seeing the big picture mired only in historical wounds. However, Koreans cannot help but wonder whether it is wise to allow Japan’s return without due repentance of its past. Time will tell which side is right ― much earlier than expected given the far faster tempo of the 21st-century world than seven decades ago. The Korea Times