opinion

The signboard of "joint" is recently emerging as a "term" frequently used in various military acts of Japan.

Shortly ago, Japan and the US agreed on the joint production of the latest air-to-air missile AIM-120, with the US secretary of Defense's visit to Japan as an occasion. Such examples are numerous, including ongoing joint development of the next-generation fighter planes with the UK and Italy, joint development of new-type warships with Australia, joint research with the US to put microwave weapons to practical use and the joint maintenance and overhaul of US warships and aircraft.

Given the joint military exercises with the forces of different countries including those with NATO, which Japan is staging not only in the Asia-Pacific region but also in the far-off regions, it is not difficult to understand that the signboard of "joint" put up by Japan covers most of the military moves of the archipelago.

This does not merely mean the strengthening of Japan's external military cooperation.

Japan has been bound by various internal and external institutional mechanisms deterring its military expansion as a war criminal state which inflicted huge damage on the Asian people in the last century.

Now all the constraints have become a thing of the past. For example, Japan abolished the principle of banning weapons export it had observed for decades and has come up with the new "three principles of defense equipment transfer".

According to the new principles, the items of export weapons are confined to non-lethal ones as previously, but international joint development and joint production are exceptions. Therefore, Japan can develop, produce and sell the weapons of attack and destruction, which are against the "exclusive defense", under the signboard of "joint".

The aim sought by Japan through the trick deceiving the world is not only to earn money but to modernize its munitions industry, which supports its ambition for becoming a military giant, and to bolster up the militaristic state's war capability.

All the joint military actions of Japan are being conducted according to this sinister intention.

This will lead to the emergence of an exclusive military alliance, a war bloc integrated in an all-round way, not merely a "single entity" of a dangerous war state keen on reinvasion in the Asia-Pacific region.

Herein lies the essence concealed behind the signboard of "joint" frequently put up by Japan.

Japan's trick to revive a war state and an aggressor state by circumventing the international community's vigilance and legal constraints with a plausible justification can no longer work.

Japan should be well aware that any "disguise" can never help it cover up its black-hearted intention and that its signboard of "joint" will only make it a "joint target" of regional countries.