Japan’s new ruling coalition policy agreement has quietly tucked in a number of defense initiatives that, if realized, would further accelerate the country’s push to beef up its security and shed some of the postwar constraints imposed on its military.
The policy agreement reached Monday between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Japan Innovation Party (JIP) says that the coalition will aim to revise Japan’s three key security documents earlier than scheduled while eliminating some of the remaining barriers on the export of lethal defense equipment and building up the country’s defense industrial base.
These defense initiatives have already spotlighted what is likely to be a more hawkish approach to defense issues by the LDP-JIP bloc — a noticeable divergence from the prior coalition government that brought together the LDP and the dovish Komeito.
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