Sunday, August 22, 2004
Japan to join US in arms production
* Tokyo puts up $2.8 bn for WWII arms disposal facility in China
TOKYO: Japan might relax a decades-old ban on arms exports so it can make weapons jointly with its main security ally, the United States, a Japanese newspaper said on Saturday.
Japan, whose constitution rules out having armed forces or ever going to war, is undertaking a sweeping reassessment of its defence strategy, inspired partly by North Korea's test firing of a missile over the country in 1998.
The missile test shocked Japan and prompted it to start joint research on new anti-missile technology with the United States - which wants Japan to play a bigger role in international affairs.
"Clearing the way for joint development and production of weapons by Japan and the United States is possible," the newspaper quoted a senior Foreign Ministry official as saying.
The Asahi Shimbun said the government might also allow joint development and production of weapons with other countries, if the United States was involved and the venture was not of a kind that would promote international conflict.
The government said in a defence white paper last month that the embargo on exports might have to end if Japan wanted to move the missile shield project forward to production. Missile parts could not be shipped to the United States without removing it, officials and lawmakers have said.
Japan's most powerful business lobby group, the Keidanren, is pushing for exports to resume, saying the ban has isolated Japan from the world's top defence technology and from global security trends.
Japan passed a law to allow it to send 550 soldiers to Iraq on a non-combat mission to rebuild the country, prompting anti-war protests. It has stoutly maintained they are not there to fight. Calls to rethink exports have also faced media criticism that this would go against Japan's post-war pacifist ideals.
Meanwhile, a report said on Saturday that Japan is to put up 2.8 billion dollars to build a facility in China to destroy chemical weapons left behind by retreating soldiers at the end of World War II.
The full cost of construction is estimated at 300 billion yen (2.8 billion dollars), the Mainichi Shimbun said, while adding it may be difficult to meet a 2007 deadline to dispose of all abandoned weapons.
Japan and China agreed in April to start building the facility within a year to meet the deadline.
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