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With Ban on Exports Lifted, Japan Arms Makers Cautiously Market Wares Abroad
The New York Times ^ | JULY 12, 2015 | JONATHAN SOBLE

Posted on 07/12/2015 8:43:43 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Some of Japan’s biggest companies, best known for motorcycles, washing machines and laptop computers, are pitching a new line of global products: military hardware.

Quiet-running attack submarines. Amphibious search-and-rescue planes. Ship-mounted radar systems that use lasers to help pinpoint approaching enemies.

After a ban on weapons exports that the Japanese government had maintained for nearly 50 years, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki, Hitachi, Toshiba and other military contractors in this semipacifist country are cautiously but unmistakably telling the world they are open for business.

A maritime security exposition here in May was the first military industry trade show in Japan, organizers and participants said. And it was the first anywhere to feature the Japanese manufacturers.

“I’ve never seen them,” said Maj. Gen. Mick Fairweather, a procurement specialist with the Australian armed forces, who regularly attends such expos around the world. “It’s going to be a growing thing.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted the prohibition on military exports last year, part of a loosening of restrictions on Japan’s military power that were put in place after its defeat in World War II.

While much of the Japanese public opposes the changes, Mr. Abe says they are long overdue. The growing might of China, Japan’s close but not always friendly neighbor, has added force to his argument.

Mr. Abe is counting on increased military-related trade to help cement ties with other countries in the region that share Japan’s wariness of China. Southeast Asian nations and India are high on the list of potential customers.

Japan hopes Australia, a fellow Pacific democracy, will be a receptive market for Soryu-class submarines, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Shipbuilding. The subs, which cost about 50 billion yen, or $410 million, use ultraquiet diesel-electric drives that make them hard for adversaries to detect.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Japan; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace; armsbuildup; japan; kawasaki

1 posted on 07/12/2015 8:43:43 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Sadly, the three countries most in need of all this are out of luck.
Taiwan because of the international arms embargo.
Philippines and Vietnam because they can’t afford it.


2 posted on 07/12/2015 8:50:21 AM PDT by buwaya
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To: sukhoi-30mki

Arms sales are very very bad when the United States does them, according to the New York Times and the rest of the Left.


3 posted on 07/12/2015 9:04:44 AM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: sukhoi-30mki
No really gigantic fighting robots armed with swords? No preposterous flying submarines with giant drill-bits on the nose? No missile-spam systems that fire off a hundred rockets in random directions that loop all over Hell and Creation before a few hit the target?

Japan, you have seriously disappointed me.

4 posted on 07/12/2015 10:02:52 AM PDT by Flatus I. Maximus (Obstruct. Oppose. Overthrow. Obama.)
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To: sukhoi-30mki
Are the Japanese making any pistols, who, what price. Or rifles??
TWB
5 posted on 07/12/2015 10:28:35 AM PDT by TWhiteBear (Sarah Palin, the Flame of the North)
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To: TWhiteBear
"Are the Japanese making any pistols, who, what price. Or rifles?? TWB"

Had a Japanese, Browning .22 lever-action rifle once. It had a beautiful finish and functioned flawlessly.

6 posted on 07/12/2015 11:52:22 AM PDT by D_Idaho ("For we wrestle not against flesh and blood...")
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To: sukhoi-30mki

If I were them, I’d arm up as much as I possibly could with an increasingly hostile China in my back yard.


7 posted on 07/12/2015 1:00:00 PM PDT by KoRn (Department of Homeland Security, Certified - "Right Wing Extremist")
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