Japan’s joint fighter plan with Britain and Italy ‘highlights Tokyo’s Taiwan concerns’

The three countries’ plan to develop a next-generation warplane reflects Japan’s desire to counter the PLA’s growing strength, according to defence analysts

The move may also reflect Tokyo’s need to move beyond relying on US technology that may not meet its own requirements

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Japan’s FX programme will be merged with a similar British project. Illustration: Handout

Published: 7:00am, 11 Dec 2022

Japan’s partnership with Britain and Italy in building a next-generation fighter plane reflects Japan’s efforts to move beyond its reliance on US defence technology and its growing concerns over Taiwan, defence analysts have said.

The announcement came a few days after Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered a sharp rise in defence spending to 2 per cent of gross domestic product by 2027. The country had long capped its annual defence budget at around 1 per cent of GDP.

The collaboration, which Japan’s defence ministry said would “contribute to global peace and stability”, will merge Japan’s F-X project to develop a new fighter with a similar British project. The plan is to bring the sixth-generation fighter into service by 2035.

“What happened to the new generation fighter development is very similar to the 1980s FSX project [where the Americans limited access to advanced software when building the F-2 fighter], as the US again doesn’t want to share core technologies with Japan, forcing Tokyo to work with London,” Cheung Mong, an associate professor with the school of international liberal studies at Waseda University in Japan, said.

Ni Lexiong, a political science professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said the People’s Liberation Army’s unprecedented exercises around Taiwan in August in the wake of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit had sharpened other countries’ minds, showing them how Beijing could turn its threats into action.