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Japan is on the path to enabling weapon exports and will be able to start exports next year. If this goes through it could be big in a number of ways. It dramatically increases Japanese influence in the region. Also it opens up Japan's arms industry, Japan is the third largest economy in the world yet exports no arms, the only customer for Japanese arms manufacturers are the Japanese themselves. This has meant that much of their production has been small scale and expensive, for example, the Japanese produce a small number of tanks a year and just keep that small but steady production going so that the factory and the skills are still there. This makes Japanese tanks some of the most expensive in the world and they get no external revenue from it. Opening up arms exports means they can ramp up production, lowering the cost of these tanks and also would mean Japan would get revenue from foreign nations for them. And of course this increase in exports can go back into R and D and manufacturing and such to produce better equipment and an even stronger defence industry. There are two issues here however. First, this ramping up may take time. They are not used to producing anything for export nor do they have a presence on the export stage. And secondly, the US may not like it. Japan entering the market will negatively affect US exports, however it may be that the increased militarization of Japan will offset that and they will not be bothered by it and even encourage it. https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/06/01/japan-export-weapons/