The Noda administration in December 2011 drastically relaxed Japan's long-standing weapons export ban. On the strength of this step, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on April 10 agreed with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron to push joint development of weapons.
This is the first time that Japan has agreed to develop weapons with a country other than the United States. Japan decided to treat export of weapons-related technology to the U.S. and joint development of missile defense with the U.S. as exceptions to the ban in 1983 and 2004, respectively.
Mr. Noda's decision this time with Britain is highly regrettable. In view of the possibility that jointly developed weapons will be used in military conflict, it is a betrayal of the principle and spirit of the war-renouncing Constitution, which says that "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes."