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Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, has warned the two countries must accelerate joint production of missiles and other cutting-edge weapons to strengthen deterrence against China and bolster military stockpiles for Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to deepen defence industrial collaboration at a summit in April.
But in an interview with the Financial Times, Emanuel said both sides needed to change existing rules for the US to make better use of Japan’s engineering and industrial capabilities.
“The United States is going to have to change the way it deals with technology transfer to get speed,” the ambassador said. “And Japan is going to have to change the way they deal with exports so there is a business case for this co-production.”
Tokyo has already relaxed its strict weapons exports guidelines to allow several dozen domestically produced Patriot air defence missiles to be shipped to the US, a move that will help Washington increase critical supplies to Ukraine.
Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries produces Patriot missiles under license from US defence contractors Lockheed Martin and RTX, formerly Raytheon Technologies. With Japan’s export rule revision, Washington wants Tokyo to play a bigger role in co-producing weapons that can be used by the US.
On Thursday, the US confirmed plans to pause the delivery of Patriot interceptor missiles to other nations in order to fast-track orders for Ukraine to bolster its air defences against Russian attacks.
In March, Japan changed its export rules to enable the sale of a fighter jet it will develop with the UK and Italy to other countries. But Komeito, a coalition partner of the ruling Liberal Democratic party, opposes further loosening of the restrictions.
Japanese defence companies risk being seen as subcontractors for the US unless they can export the weapons they co-produce more broadly to other friendly nations.
US joint production of military equipment and weapons with partners has often been complicated by Washington’s long-standing curbs on the sharing of technology.
Frustration over the US habit of keeping its most cutting-edge technology to itself was partly behind Japan’s decision to build its fighter jet with the UK and Italy instead.
Emanuel said the US no longer had the luxury of spending years to approve transfers of technology to allies. “We’re going to have to change. We can’t do holding technology to the point that you can’t get there fast,” he said.
In Tokyo earlier this month, senior US and Japanese defence officials held talks under a new forum promoting greater defence industry co-operation, where they formally launched discussions on joint repair and maintenance of US warships deployed to Japan.
Emanuel said using Japanese-operated shipyards for repair and maintenance would allow warships to remain in the Indo-Pacific region instead of making lengthy trips back to the US for servicing.
The US Seventh Fleet is headquartered at Yokosuka south of Tokyo where it has its own shipyards for smaller repairs, but use of Japanese yards would allow much larger-scale work to be performed locally.
This would strengthen the allies’ collective deterrence against military contingencies, such as a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
“If we train together, we should repair together,” Emanuel said. “It’s actually that infrastructure and that kind of capacity that will be essential for our deterrence.”
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