By Zhao Yanan and Chen Yue
Japan's House of Councilors on April 7, 2026 approved the government's fiscal year 2026 budget, in which defense spending surged past the 9-trillion-yen mark for the first time. The continuously rising defense budget has significantly squeezed government spending in areas such as healthcare and social security, while defense contractors have reaped substantial profits.
The sharp increase in Japan's defense budget has directly stimulated the growth of its domestic defense industry, particularly with a marked expansion in the procurement of equipment such as fighter jets and missiles. According to publicly available data, in fiscal year 2024, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries signed defense contracts with Japan's Ministry of Defense totaling 1.4567 trillion yen, covering offensive weapons systems such as the Type 25 surface-to-ship missile, the Type 25 Type 25 Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile, and Aegis Warships. Mitsubishi Electric secured projects including upgrades to the Type 03 medium-range surface-to-air missile and the integrated equipment testing and evaluation system used in hypersonic missile test. Although Kawasaki Heavy Industries was exposed in 2024 for scandals involving fraudulent transactions to defraud defense spending and the illegal provision of gifts to Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel, it still received orders worth 232.5 billion yen in 2025, including the delivery of 17 CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters.
Bolstered by massive defense contracts, Japanese defense contractors have seen a sharp rise in revenue. In 2024, five Japanese companies, that is, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi Electric, and NEC Corporation, entered the global top 100 defense companies by sales, with total earnings increasing by 40 percent year on year.
The surge in defense contractors' profitability has also facilitated greater political donations to right-wing politicos, further strengthening a deeply entrenched structure of mutual interests between the defense industry and right-wing political forces in Japan. In 2024, Japan's leading defense contractors and 12 affiliated companies collectively donated more than 220 million yen to thepolitical fundraising organization of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, the People's Political Association. Through political donations, Japanese defense companies seek to influence defense policy and the allocation of military procurement contracts, thereby consolidating their monopolistic position and securing excess profits. This has increasingly evolved into a core interest group driving the continued rightward shift of Japan's security policy.
As the ties between Japan's defense industry and right-wing politicos grow increasingly close, the trend toward the neo-militarism in Japan has further intensified. Right-wing politicos rely on political donations to secure campaign and governing resources, using this leverage to translate historical revisionism and military expansionist agendas into the state policy. Since taking office, Sanae Takaichi has repeatedly stated her intention to further reform Japan's defense system and accelerate constitutional revision. She has set a goal of revising the Three Documents by the end of 2026, including the National Security Strategy, and continuing to strengthen long-range strike capabilities, enhance missile defense systems, and procure large quantities of offensive weapon systems, thereby loosening constraints on military expansion at the strategic level. Meanwhile, Japan plans to further relax restrictions on arms exports and move toward a comprehensive lifting of its ban on defense equipment exports. On April 6, the Research Commission on Security of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) held a meeting to discuss plans to ease restrictions on arms exports, and proposed revising the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology and their implementation guidelines within April, to further loosen controls on weapons exports.
This pattern of mutual exploitation and deep entanglement between the defense industry and right-wing political forces not only exacerbates fiscal pressures and social welfare constraints but also drives further rightward shifts in Japan's political landscape, allowing historical revisionist thinking to spread more widely and steadily erode Japan's postwar pacifist foundation. While still burdened by unresolved historical responsibility for past aggression, Japan is nevertheless allowing the defense-industrial interest group to develop offensive military capabilities and pursue re-militarization, which poses a serious threat to regional peace and stability. The international community must remain highly vigilant and firmly oppose any attempts by Japan to pursue neo-militarism.
(The author is from the Chinese PLA Academy of Military Science)