The Japanese government is preparing amendments to the law on the export of defense products, which will allow the transfer of some types of weapons abroad.

The Wall Street Journal reported on this.

This week, Japan will formalize legislative changes that will allow it to export several dozen Patriot missiles to the United States. The bill does not explicitly mention these systems, but it is in line with the Biden administration’s request.

The new missiles are to replenish the depleted US stockpile, whose government is looking for opportunities to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense in the face of constant Russian missile attacks.

Japan independently produces anti-aircraft missiles for Patriot systems, in particular, for the most modern PAC-3 systems, under license from Raytheon.

To date, the Ukrainian military has three Patriot systems at its disposal, one of which was transferred by the United States, and two more by Germany.

Together with the Franco-Italian SAMP-T system, these are the only systems in the country capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.

In addition, the US Patriot PAC-3 is the only system that has proven capable of shooting down Russian Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. Russia has repeatedly tried to strike the Ukrainian capital with the latter.

Japan’s New Policy

The revision of export legislation was announced a year ago in Japan’s national security strategy, and since then the two parties in the ruling coalition have discussed ways to ease longstanding restrictions to strengthen cooperation with Western partners and stimulate Japan’s defense industry.

Washington and the ruling party of Japan primarily discussed larger changes that would allow Japan to export weapons directly to countries at war.

In addition, in June, during negotiations, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan discussed with his counterpart Takeo Akiba the prospect that Japan, in addition to Patriot missiles, would also transfer part of its stockpile of 155 mm ammunition to the United States.

However, due to controversy in Japanese political ranks, this was not achieved.