China’s Ministry of Commerce recently announced it is adding 20 entities involved in enhancing Japan’s military capabilities to its export control list, while placing another 20 Japanese entities on a watch list for failing to verify the end users and end uses of dual-use goods. Beijing framed the move as a matter of national security, non-proliferation obligations, and a direct response to what it describes as Japan’s accelerating “re-militarization.”
China argues that under the Cairo Declaration, the Potsdam Proclamation, and Japan’s Instrument of Surrender, Japan is legally prohibited from rearming. Yet major Japanese defense contractors — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI Corporation, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries — have continued producing warships, fighter jets, and missiles. China specifically cites Mitsubishi’s involvement in developing hypersonic glide weapons and shipbuilding contracts that it claims threaten stability in the East and South China Seas.
The article points to Japan’s rapid defense spending growth as evidence of a deepening military-industrial complex. Defense budgets have risen for 14 consecutive fiscal years from 2012 to 2026, more than doubling since 2022. Stock prices of major defense firms have surged dramatically since November 2022 — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries by over 650 percent, IHI by over 480 percent, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries by over 280 percent — even as Japan’s broader manufacturing sector grew at less than 1 percent annually over the same period.
Under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, the article claims, remilitarization has accelerated further, with plans for large-scale bond issuance and a special defense income tax to fund military expenditures, alongside the establishment of a national intelligence agency this year.
The piece also raises alarm over Japan’s nuclear ambitions, noting that Japan had stockpiled 44.4 tons of separated plutonium as of end-2024 — far exceeding civilian energy needs — and possesses the full technical infrastructure to produce weapons-grade material. China warns that if Japan crosses the nuclear threshold, the global non-proliferation framework would face a severe blow. The article concludes that China’s export controls are a lawful and necessary step to prevent militarism’s resurgence and to uphold the postwar international order.
Source: People’s Daily, February 28, 2026
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/pc/content/202602/28/content_30142715.html