Japan is now selling weapons. The end of an 80-year-old taboo

Translated by Ramona Orefice

On 21 April 2026, the cabinet led by Sanae Takaichi approved a revision of the restrictions on the export of military equipment, opening the way, for the first time in post-war Japanese history, for the sale of lethal weapons abroad. The decision, adopted jointly by the National Security Council, formally marks the end of a taboo that had persisted for over eighty years. Yet those who study Japanese security policy know full well that this is not a sudden break: rather, it is the final act of a transformation that began long before, slowly, almost on the tip of toes.

The Constitution and the Yoshida Model

Everything starts with Article IX of the 1947 Constitution, the so-called ‘pacifist clause’, drafted under American occupation. The text explicitly renounces war as an instrument of sovereign policy and prohibits the maintenance of conventional armed forces. In the following decades, this provision became interlinked with the so-called Yoshida Doctrine: Japan would focus its energies on economic reconstruction, effectively delegating its security to the alliance with the United States. The Self-Defence Forces, established in 1954, were permitted solely for the defence of the national territory, the famous “one-nation pacifism”.

As regard to armaments, the export ban was not codified in the Constitution – which has no explicit reference to the arms trade – but was consolidated through policy. In 1967, Prime Minister Eisaku Sato codified the Three Principles on Arms Exports, prohibiting the sale of arms to communist countries, countries under international embargo and countries engaged in armed conflict, in response to concerns regarding Japan’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

The breakthrough came in 1976, when the Miki government extended the ban to cover almost all cases, connecting it to the ‘spirit of the pacifist Constitution’. Recent historical research shows that this move was in fact the result of a political compromise of the moment, not of a genuine anti-militarist conviction: the opposition had used the issue to block the approval of the annual budget, and the government gave in. But once institutionalised, that rule became a defining pillar of post-war Japanese identity.

The Gulf War and the Awakening

The first major setback came in 1991, with the Gulf War. Despite contributing thirteen billion dollars to the US-led coalition, Japan did not send any troops. Kuwait did not include Tokyo on its list of countries to thank, and the government was left reeling from the humiliation of ‘chequebook diplomacy’. The following year, a law authorised for the first time the deployment of the Self-Defence Forces in United Nations peacekeeping operations, albeit in non-combat contexts. It was the first structural crack in that model.

Abe and proactive pacifism

The most significant change before today's development was introduced by Shinzo Abe, who returned to power in 2012. In 2013, his administration introduced Japan’s first National Security Strategy, built around the concept of a ‘proactive contribution to peace’: the country would stop being a passive bystander and take an active role in preserving the international order. In 2014, Abe eased the ban on arms exports, adopting new Three Principles on the transfer of defence equipment and technology: exports became possible if they served the interests of peace, national strategic interests or the strengthening of the defence industry. In the same year, a constitutional reinterpretation authorised the exercise of collective self-defence for the first time: the Self-Defence Forces could now intervene if an allied country were attacked, even if Japan itself was not under direct threat. It was a quiet revolution.

Under Fumio Kishida, who succeeded Abe in 2021, this trajectory accelerated further. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tokyo imposed sanctions on Moscow and aligned itself without hesitation with the European Union and NATO, marking an unprecedented level of involvement in a European conflict in Japan’s history. In 2022, a new National Security Strategy set the target of raising the defence budget to 2% of GDP by 2027, allocating a total of 43 trillion yen over the following five years. The same Strategy authorised the development of counter-attack capabilities, and the government purchased 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States. In 2023, Japan exported PAC-3 surface-to-air missiles to the United States for the first time, justifying the move by citing the depletion of American stocks deployed in Ukraine. The taboo was cracking; formally still in place, but increasingly hollowed out.

April 2026: the epilogue

The decision of 21 April 2026 completes this cycle. Takaichi, regarded as Abe’s principal political heir, has brought to completion what her mentor had initiated but had never fully dared to formalise. The new regulations pave the way for the sale of lethal weapons systems abroad, whilst maintaining restrictions on countries involved in active conflicts. The motivation is dual: strategic – to strengthen the national defence industry, reduce dependence on the United States, and build more robust security relationships with partner countries – and economic. Japanese companies in the sector had been operating for decades in a closed and unprofitable market. The recent contract with Australia for the supply of frigates is the first major test of this new era.

Beijing’s reaction and regional tensions

It is not surprising that China has responded harshly. The spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed “serious concern”, interpreting the move as a further step towards what Beijing calls Japanese’s new militarism. Relations between the two countries were already strained due to Takaichi’s statements on Taiwan and a symbolic gesture linked to the Yasukuni Shrine – a place of cultof worship that China associates with the memory of Japanese imperial militarism. This illustrates the extent to which Japanese domestic politics is now intertwined with the regional diplomatic balance: every step towards Japan’s military normalisation is interpreted by Beijing as a revision of the post-war order.

A changing country, a Constitution that remains

However, the 1947 Constitution has still not been changed. Article IX remains intact, and this is what sets the Japanese approach apart: a country that has radically transformed its security policy without ever formally amending the provision that was supposed to prevent it, through reinterpretations, new laws and revisions of the implementing principles. As the political scientist Purnendra Jain has pointed out, this is “a reinterpretation, not a rejection, of the post-war pacifist constitution”: idealism has given way to pragmatic realism, without the constitutional text being formally altered.

Takaichi’s Japan is more assertive, more present on the international defence landscape, and more willing to take diplomatic risks with its neighbours. The big question remains whether this transformation will consolidate regional stability through more effective deterrence, or whether it will fuel arms races in an area already plagued by structural tensions. The answer will depend largely on what happens between Tokyo, Beijing and Washington in the coming years. And on whether – or not – we continue to call all this ‘pacifism’.

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