editorial

The militaristic entity of Japan, which has completely removed its veil of "exclusive defense", is making a daring appearance before the world.

Recently, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Restoration Party of Japan reportedly submitted to the prime minister a proposal on lifting in a principled way the ban on the export of all its weapons and equipment including lethal weapons.

The proposal calls for removing the five principles of the past limiting Japan's equipment export to "disaster relief, transportation, guard, surveillance and mine sweeping".

It is reported that if the proposal is formally passed through the prime minister, the revision of the arms export system might be examined even in the spring of this year.

If this turns into a reality, Japan will be allowed to export fighters, escort ships, submarines and other lethal weapons and equipment to the countries with which it signed an agreement on the export of "defense equipment" and the transfer of their technology.

Japan has so far concluded the agreement with 17 countries, and among them are several Asia-Pacific countries.

What cannot be overlooked is that it is trying to abandon the principle of not transferring even non-lethal equipment to contending countries it set as a brake in the past.

This will legally allow Japan to export and give as support its lethal weapons to any of its "fellow countries" where armed conflict has occurred.

Militaristic Japan has become too much emboldened.

A dangerous and sinister design lies behind Japan's attempt to export the offensive lethal weapons openly and without limit to the countries with which it signed the agreement on the export of "defense equipment" and the transfer of their technology.

Japan has drastically increased its military expenditure every year and has been hell-bent on the development and introduction of various kinds of offensive weapons.

Accordingly, its munitions industry, which has been limited to the delivery of military equipment for the "Self-Defense Forces", is expanding day by day to demand new outlets. And therefore, it is attempting to advance to the hot spots of the world to meet the needs.

At the same time, it is trying to verify and confirm in an all-round way the merits and demerits of its military hardware, including the operability in real war and lethal effect, in different parts of the world and rapidly increase its preemptive attack capability by promptly updating weapon systems.

Its moves to massively export offensive lethal weapons constitute a grave challenge to global peace and security.

This will certainly cause a serious arms race among the countries in the surrounding region, escalate the geopolitical crisis and, furthermore, make the world situation more unstable.

It is the intention of Japan to turn its economy into the huge munitions industry-oriented one as early as possible and accelerate its militarization by relying on that and, at the same time, create a favourable environment for reinvasion by disrupting the balance of power in the region and the rest of the world.

Japan should know clearly that the road to reinvasion, which the war criminal state is trying to open up by dint of new outlets for arms export, leads to its non-revivable ruin.