Kim Ryo Won, an international security analyst of the DPRK, on June 3 issued the following article “Japan’s expansion of arms export is a dangerous act fully revealing the true colours of the war merchant”:

Taking the advantage of the present unstable international situation in which armed conflicts are frequent in different parts of the planet due to the US arbitrary practices and tyranny, Japan is going beyond the red line in its frantic moves to free itself from the political and military fetters of the defeated nation and realize its ambition for reinvasion.

The latest example is Japan’s amendments to the “three principles on transfer of defence equipment” and its implementation guidelines in April, which had restricted its arms export just for form’s sake, despite concern and strong opposition at home and abroad. And Japan is now keen on expanding arms export while justifying it.

Days ago, the present chief executive of Japan justified the criminal nature of the amendments to the “three principles on transfer of defence equipment” by asserting that the essential point is that it makes it possible to increase the deterrent for defence and prevent disputes in advance in the severest security environment since the war.

Japan, a war criminal state, has revised its policy on arms export, talking about the “dramatic shift of its security policy”. This is by no means a matter to be overlooked in view of its intention and purpose.

It is well known that Japan, which is banned by international law and its own constitution from possessing the right to belligerency and the rights to participate in a war and possess the war potentials, has removed the institutional obstacles one by one in a crafty way to export weapons, not content with its frantic development of offensive weapons and equipment.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Japan put forward the “three principles on arms export” and “all-round expansion of the principle of banning arms export” as the signboard of a “pacifist state” but behind the scenes it pursued its own purposes.

It is an open secret that the parts of various kinds of lethal weapons used in the aggression wars, big or small, launched by the US to realize its hegemonic strategy, including the Gulf War and the Yugoslavia War, were marked with the brands of Japanese munitions monopolies.

In 2014, the then Abe cabinet abolished the “three principles on arms export”, a hindrance to the realization of its goal to become a military giant. And it cooked up the so-called “three principles on transfer of defence equipment” whose gist is to allow the export of lethal weapons to those countries taking part in the co-development of weapons and equipment and the export of equipment for non-combatant purpose such as “disaster relief, transportation, guard, surveillance and clearing” to other countries.

In 2023, Japan amended it and sold its home-made Patriot missiles to the US under the permission of US enterprises. In this roundabout way, Japan sent a lot of lethal weapons to the Ukrainian battlefield.

Not content with this, Japan completely removed the restrictions on the export of weapons and equipment at this time and added an exceptional clause that allows it not to observe the principle of banning arms export to a party in a conflict under “the special circumstances”. By doing so, Japan opened up a legitimate way to unrestrictedly sell all kinds of lethal weapons to any conflict zone in the world.

Accordingly, Japan is busy exporting all kinds of lethal weapons, including escort ships, submarines and missiles, through frequent arms sales negotiations with its so-called like-minded countries.

The world people still remember the criminal act committed by Japan which got a windfall through the supply of vast quantities of munitions as a logistic base of the US during the Korean war in the 1950s, and embarked upon the road of reviving militarism with it as its asset.

Japan’s expansion of arms export is a dangerous act that fully revealed its true colours as a war merchant trying to expand the munitions industry and realize its ambition to be a major military power at any cost through the selling of a large number of deadly weapons.

And Japan seeks to accelerate the preparations for reinvasion by worsening geopolitical conflicts in the hot spots of the world and making money through the bloodshed. Herein lies the injustice and dangerousness of Japan’s arms export expansion.

Japan once resorted to political and military provocations against a neighbouring country, suggesting its intervention in “Taiwan contingency”, and it is now developing into a war state by finding a market for selling various lethal weapons. So, Japan’s destination is quite self-evident.

The international community should thoroughly check and frustrate ever-increasing moves of Japan, a war criminal state, to become a military giant as it has completely discarded even the veil of “pacifist state”, obsessed with its ambition for reinvasion, and seriously threatens global peace and security.

KCNA