Japan's government unveiled revisions to its rules on defense equipment and technology transfers, abolishing the restriction that had largely confined transfers to nonlethal items, according to a Ministry of Defense readout on April 21. Transfers of lethal systems would still be limited to countries that have defense equipment and technology transfer agreements with Japan, with 17 countries currently qualifying.

Japan is reinforcing its defense production base and strengthening partners' deterrence capacity to respond to a riskier regional security environment. More broadly, the change is part of Japan's incremental loosening of its postwar pacifist constitutional order — from easing the near-total export ban in 2014 to allowing broader co-developed weapons transfers in recent years, and now moving closer to treating defense exports as a normal policy tool.