Report: Japan mulls building own fighter jets

TO O A — Japan is considering building its own fi ghter jets after years of playing second fiddle in a US construction partnership, a report said Thursday, in a move likely to stoke fears of its military resurgence among Asian neighbors.

Japan s attempt in the 1980s to build its first purely domestic fighters since World War faced US resistance and resulted in joint US-Japan development and production of the -2, the Nikkei newspaper said.

But joint - 2 production ended more than two years ago and the last of the fighters are due to be retired from Japan s air defense force around 2028, it added.

The defense ministry plans to seek about 387 million in state funding for the next year starting in April 2015 to test experimental engines and radar- dodging stealth airframe designs for a purely Japanese fighter, the report said.

According to its mediumterm defense program, the Tokyo government will decide by the 2018 financial year whether to go ahead with the all-Japanese fighter project.

There is a growing need for Japan to develop a long-haul, highly stealthy fighter jets in face of hina s increasing assertiveness in the East hina Sea, where the two countries are locked in a dispute over a group of Tokyo-controlled islands, the Nikkei said.