In Japan, a more muted cheering for the British-led GCAP warplane

MANILA, Philippines — Japan and British defense ministers met last week to discuss an ongoing joint fighter jet development program with Italy and to unveil the trinational headquarters for the project in Reading, 36 miles west of London.

Japan defense minister Gen Nakatani’s U.K. itinerary includes a meeting with Secretary of State for Defense John Healy on the Global Combat Air Programme and a visit to the headquarters of the GCAP International Government Organization (GIGO), the international body tasked with overseeing its development, production, and future exports.

“Today, Minister Nakatani and I have highlighted the positive progress being made on our important next-generation fighter jet program, to strengthen our security cooperation,” Healy was quoted as saying in a press release.

Partners are developing the fighter jets to enter service in 2035 while incurring less costs. The timeframe is crucial for Japan which will start retiring around 100 F-2s in the same year.

The three countries are expected to hammer out the finer details in Reading, including work, cost, and revenue sharing; proprietary information and technology transfers; and the involvement of third countries like Saudi Arabia.

“All three countries and all the people want to have more work share and profit, but they will minimize the financial responsibility as well,” says Sadamasa Oue, consulting senior fellow of the Asia Pacific Initiative of the International House of Japan, a Tokyo-based think tank. Oue is a retired lieutenant general of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.

“This is going to be a very difficult negotiation,” Oue tells Defense News.

In Britain, GCAP is a popular, widely reported multinational initiative. Groups waited with bated breath when Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office and heaved a collective sigh of relief when he approved the program.

While experts scrutinized the U.K.’s two billion pounds ($2.4 billion) allocation for initial research and scoping, GCAP partners drummed up attention when they unveiled the fighter jet’s concept model at the Farnborough Airshow near London in July.

And British officials in a comprehensive report last week reiterated a need to rein in finances and “break the mould” of previous programs, which saw decades-long delays, development hurdles, and massive cost overruns. They also called for annual allocations to sustain British engagement.

In contrast, there is “GCAP silence” in Japan, says James Angelus, President of the International Security Industry Council, a Tokyo-based group devoted to connecting Western and Japanese defense firms. Last year, they wanted to raise awareness of the fighter jets, which the public knew little or nothing about. This attempt, Angelus says, met objections.

“We try to put together a program for GCAP — it’s on our website: the next fighter jet — but we had to modify the title and keep the word GCAP out of the title. Why? Because of so many objections from Japan,” Angelus told Defense News. Local officials, he added, didn’t want the program to be a focus. “We have a lot of big decisions we have not made,” Angelus said, summarizing the local officials’ reason for the apprehension.

According to the analyst, local companies involved in the company “are a little embarrassed. They want to come out at a time when they can really trumpet success… that [they] have this formula put together.”

GCAP is Japan’s largest, most expensive and most important defense project since the Asian nation redefined Article 9 of its pacifist constitution and relaxed post-war arms export policies in 2014.

However, it took eight years before the government released a new security strategy in December 2022 that elaborated buildup goals, troop deployments, and defense transfers amid increasing nuclear missile threats from North Korea.

GCAP is expected to revitalize Japan’s defense industry, which faced public criticism in the past, says Yusuke Takagi, associate professor of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, a public policy school and think tank in Tokyo.

“The defense industry in Japan has been in trouble for decades. There are many people who want to cut the defense industry. They say, ‘Japan should be a pacifist nation, Japan doesn’t need a defense industry’—that’s one position,” Takagi said. “And some politicians are very concerned about these voices.”

Since signing the GCAP treaty in 2022, Japan has allocated billions of yen for research and development to be spread out over the next five years in its annual defense budget and tapped hundreds of engineers, experts and personnel.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in July last year established with Japanese Aerospace Companies the Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd., or JAIEC, a unified entity representing the domestic defense industry in the trinational collaboration.

Before leaving office last fall, then-Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wrangled with lawmakers, even with coalition partners, to revise the existing defense transfer rules to accommodate GCAP. The policy was loosened but the Diet, the national parliament, set strict conditions on future exports, which experts hope will be changed before 2035.

Meanwhile, opposition parties criticized the move, saying it’s a preamble to Japan becoming an arms exporter.

GCAP is likely to face similar political resistance and public scrutiny in the future. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and its junior coalition partner Komeito failed to take majority seats in last year’s elections.

Oue says revising defense transfer rules will not be a high priority or might not even be tackled in this Cabinet.

This may also derail the remaining years of Japan’s five-year buildup plan to set aside 2% of the country GDP on defense spending as the country grapples with high inflation, shrinking yen, and a social welfare crisis.

“Weak ruling party, weak government is problematic,” Oue says. “I hope this Cabinet or the following Cabinet—I don’t when know the next election will be conducted and if Prime Minister Ishiba will still be surviving or not, but I hope that despite this political situation, GCAP is implemented as planned.”

“If the government can convince the people that GCAP is by far cheaper than fighter jets from the United States, maybe it can be popular, but I don’t think so,” Takagi says.

Experts said a much bigger player might influence GCAP: President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Unlike President Joe Biden who built and strengthened alliance networks, experts describe Trump as “unpredictable,” “transactional,” and “demanding.”

“He prioritizes arms deals that are beneficial for the American defense industry,” Takagi says. “During the first Trump administration, Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe had a good relationship with Trump, so somehow he managed the relationship. But now, our prime minister is not as strong as Abe so we don’t know to what extent Japan can absorb the pressure from the United States,” Takagi explains.

“And even under Abe … Abe promised to buy more fighter jets from the United States,” Takagi pointed out, adding that with Trump in office, GCAP might face competition from American-made jets.

Oue agrees but says the Japanese government needs convince the Trump administration about their security strategy. “Japan will try to play an important role in improving the security environment in this region and work together with the United States to deter China, North Korea, and Russia,” he says.

The best next step for GCAP, Takagi says, is to make it more concrete.

“They have to show the progress of the program,” he said. “It’s quite often the case that there are delays. How is this carrier program being carried out, show it one by one, step by step… If Saudi Arabia comes into the picture—yes, why don’t we invite the Saudis more?”

“I think time is of the essence … and I think Japan’s going to make its decisions based on what’s happening in Ukraine and Russia. And they’re going to support the Brits with the GCAP program. They are committed,” Angelus says.