Japan Press Weekly

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2015 December 16 - 22 [POLITICS]

Don’t export submarines to Australia: citizens’ network

Anti-arms trade activists waged a protest outside the Prime Minister’s Office on December 18 to coincide with a Japan-Australia summit meeting where Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was pushing Japan’s submarine-related technology to be exported to Australia.

In response to the call by a recently-established network opposing the Abe Cabinet policy to promote arms exports, many concerned citizens along with Dietmembers from the Japanese Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party took part in this action.

Holding banners and placards which read, “Don’t sell submarines to Australia! Defend peace for the Pacific! We don’t want to be a merchant of death,” protesters chanted in chorus, “Don’t export weapons!”

JCP member of the House of Councilors Inoue Satoshi criticized the currently ongoing arms export talks by saying, “The expansion of arms exports will lead this country to be military oriented, which will only help foment international conflicts. We shouldn’t allow it to happen as it directly contradicts the military-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution.”

The Abe government lifted Japan’s postwar principles banning its arms trade in April 2014 and established an arms agency named the Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Agency in October this year to fully embark on Japan’s arms exports.

At present, a public-private consortium consisting of the Defense Ministry, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries is trying to win orders with respect to joint development and production of the Australian Navy’s state-of-the-art submarines.

Past related articles:
> Arms agency inaugurated in violation of constitutional pacifism [October 5, 2015]
> Gov’t abandons Japan’s arms embargo principles [April 2, 2014]