Facilitating Japan’s Participation in Multinational Defense R&D:
A Japanese Approach to Strategic Management of Technology Transfer and
Intellectual Property Rights Issues
By
Masahiro Matsumura, Ph.D.
Visi
ting Research Fellow, NDU-INSS
and
Professor of International Politics
St. Andrew’s University in Osaka
masahiro@andrew.ac.jp
1. Introduction: Defining a Research Objective
In 2014, Japan made a high-profile policy reversal toward the export policy of major most
techno
logically and militarily advanced nations, that permits the export of defense
equipment, articles and services, involving technology transfer.
1
Since then, however, Japan
has made little substantial progress to date, except several bi-national research and
development (R&D) projects for individual element te
chnologies as well as some limited
legal-administrative instruments thereo
f.
2
For several decades, Japanese defense firms have
produced arms mostly for domestic use, with some under manufacturing agreements of U.S.
defense contractors. Unsurprisingly, Japanese arms do not sell well overseas, due to their low
international price competitiveness consequent upon the nature of domestic defense markets
that are generally closed, highly monopsonistic, and comparatively small-sized; and due to
the total lack of battlefield operational experience and combat-proven performance that
results from the postwar pacifist constitution.
1
The Three Principles on Arms Export of 1967 and the additional policy guidelines of 1976
by the Miki administration together constituted a de facto arms export ban until it was
replaced by the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology of 2014.
See,
Defense of Japan
(Defense White Paper), Japan’s Ministry of Defense, 2014, pp.
329-331 and pp. 455-456, Reference 62,
http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/pdf/2014/DOJ2014_reference_web_1031.pdf
,
http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/pdf/2014/DOJ2014_4-1-3_web_1031.pdf#search=%27th
ree+prinles+of+arms+export%27.
2
These bi-national projects are rather Japan’s response to many foreign nations, such as
some major West European countries and India, that have realized the value of Japanese
advanced technologies, especially dual-use technologies with significant military applications.
See,
Defense of Japan, 2015
, pp. 266-269,
http://www.mod.go.jp/e/publ/w_paper/pdf/2015/DOJ2015_3-2-4_web.pdf, accessed on
February 1, 2017.
