Warship deal and Strait transit raise alarms over Tokyo’s course

There was a time when Japan seemed to export Toyotas and opportunities. Now it’s exporting warships — and a kind of deja vu.

On Saturday, Japan and Australia inked a $6.5 billion warship deal. This is not just another military contract — it is Japan’s most strategically consequential arms export since the country began doubling down on attempts to loosen its postwar restraints in recent years.

And if you listen closely, there’s a hum beneath the surface — not just of ship engines, but of history.

The timing is almost too neat. As a Japanese destroyer, JS Ikazuchi, transited through the Taiwan Strait on Friday eliciting stern, justified responses from Beijing, Tokyo is simultaneously unveiling itself as a new player in the global arms bazaar. It’s as if Japan is auditioning for two roles at once: the so-called “guardian” of regional “stability” and supplier of the tools that make instability more likely.

The Japanese government under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi casts a long, unmistakable shadow over this double-faced play. If this is the trailer, you can already guess the tone of the feature film.

The script, intriguingly, has an old plotline with a modern rewrite. During World War II, Japanese militarism formed a grim economic loop — “sustaining war through war”. Occupied territories were drained to fuel the machinery that enabled further expansion.

Today’s version might have not yet involved territorial conquest, but by scaling up domestic weapons production and liberalizing its exports, the Takaichi government is creating a self-reinforcing cycle: sell more weapons, justify higher military spending, build more weapons, and repeat.

It’s capitalism with a militaristic edge — less “Made in Japan” and more “Armed by Japan”.

Unlike European nations that often rely on US military contractors, Japan appears determined to keep the profits — and the power — at home. Its advanced manufacturing sector, once synonymous with consumer innovation, is being repurposed into a strategic asset for military expansion. The assembly line in some Japanese big-name companies is still humming; it’s just producing a different kind of product. Some of these companies were also the backbone of Japan’s war machine in the past.

And with a NATO delegation visiting Tokyo immediately before the arms deal was announced, the message was almost theatrical in its staging. Look, Japan seemed to be saying, we’re not just a “pacifist” nation with a complicated past; we’re a “reliable” partner, a capable producer, and — if necessary — an actor willing to step onto the stage.

The warship transiting through the Taiwan Strait on the last day of the NATO delegation’s visit to Japan was a signal to NATO: we’re doers, not talkers.

That kind of signaling may play well in certain strategic circles, but it raises the temperature in a region already prone to anxieties.

Symbolism matters. And in Asia, history has a long memory and a short fuse.

For many in the Asia-Pacific region, the sight of Japanese warships operating assertively beyond Japan’s territorial waters is not easily divorced from the past. The optics can feel unsettlingly familiar — like hearing Umi Yukaba, a popular song associated with the Imperial Navy of Japan in World War II stressing loyalty to the Emperor and readiness to die, played in a new key.

The rise of a new type of militarism in Japan has shown the potential to mislead the country to repeat its history. That should invite scrutiny and vigilance of the region and beyond. What Japan seeks is by no means “normalization” but a break from its postwar restraints.

History doesn’t repeat itself neatly. It rhymes, it mutates, it adapts. And sometimes, it sails back into view — this time with a $6.5 billion price tag.