Tokyo arms show offers Japan venue to build military ties in Southeast Asia

TOKYO — Defense firms will put out their wares on Monday at Japan’s only dedicated arms show, a site for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government to promote industrial military ties that will bolster the country’s influence in Southeast Asia.

Japan’s defense ministry has invited Southeast Asian military representatives from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam to a separate military technology seminar, aiming to ensure attendance for the three-day Maritime Air Systems and Technologies Asia (MAST) show near Tokyo, two sources said.

Abe’s government wants to make arms sales and military technology collaboration a new plank of Japanese diplomacy in Southeast Asia as it counters China’s growing influence in the South China Sea.

About $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes through the strategic waterway each year, much of it to and from Japan.

In 2014, Abe ended a decadesold arms export ban, partly to cut procurement costs by widening arms production, but also, for the first time since World War II, to allow Japan to offer arms technology as a lure for closer military ties.

The small Southeast Asian arms market is growing as economic growth boosts defense spending. Japan is likely push to back against China’s offers to supply military equipment to the region.

“The only thing that really matters in Southeast Asia is cost and China will offer at low cost,” said Paul Burton, director of aerospace, defense and security at IHS Markit in Singapore.

“They will quite happily give away the family jewels in terms of enabling indigenous production, training the local work force and offset into other sectors.”

At least 16 Japanese firms are exhibiting alone, from leading arms maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, to the maker of the sub-hunting P-1 patrol jet, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and ShinMaywa Industries, which builds the US-2 amphibious plane.

The three- day show will include overseas exhibitors, such as F-35 stealth fighter maker Lockheed Martin Corp and France’s Thales SA, and will have double the floor space of the 2015 event, a spokeswoman for the organizer said.