Retired Japanese army chief says Taiwan should one day join Japan's arms transfer list

Kiyofumi Iwata, a retired general who led Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force as its chief of staff, said on 11 October that Taiwan should one day be added to the list of countries to which Japan is allowed to transfer weapons, the Liberty Times reported.

Speaking at the 2026 Taiwan-Japan Technology Future Forum in Taipei, co-hosted by the Indo-Pacific Strategy Think Tank and the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals, Iwata said Japan had lifted restrictions on arms transfers across five categories and could now supply weapons abroad, but only to 17 countries. He said it was regrettable that Taiwan was not among them and that he believed it should be included some day.

Iwata, who spoke at the Chang Yung-fa Foundation, was one of several Japanese guests at the event, along with upper house lawmakers Seki Hei and Eriko Yamatani and Yoshiko Sakurai, who heads the Japanese institute, according to the Central News Agency.

Parts first, not fighters

Iwata also made clear he was not urging a rush into weapons deals. According to the Central News Agency, he said the main field for Taiwan-Japan defence-industrial cooperation in the near term should not be trades in fighter aircraft or missiles but dual-use components, materials and modules, an approach he said would avoid inflaming political and diplomatic friction while keeping the two sides' military parts compatible.

He singled out drones as the area with the most potential. Iwata said about 90 percent of Japan's drone market is held by airframes from Chinese companies, and noted that Japan's trade ministry set a goal last December of building capacity at home to produce 80,000 drones a year by 2030, working with like-minded partners including Taiwan, the Liberty Times reported. He said he hoped the two sides could build a production system on the scale of tens of thousands of drones.

He described the semiconductor ties between the two as a lips-and-teeth relationship, saying Japanese cars, home appliances and Self-Defense Forces equipment could not work without advanced chips from Taiwan, while Taiwan's chipmaking depends heavily on Japanese materials and equipment.

First island chain and Taiwan contingency

Iwata said Yonaguni, about 110 kilometres from Taiwan, is Japan's front line and that Taiwan sits at the core of the first island chain, which he called the barrier stopping China's military from expanding into the western Pacific. He said the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines is a strategic passage closely watched by the US and Japanese navies.

He told the forum that the Japanese government had drawn up a plan to evacuate about 120,000 residents and visitors from the Sakishima Islands to Kyushu and Yamaguchi Prefecture in a Taiwan contingency, and that an actual drill is due in November, according to the Liberty Times.

Iwata also pointed to China's tightening of export controls on dual-use items to Japan, which the Central News Agency said he linked to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's remarks in the Diet on a Taiwan emergency, and said the move showed Beijing now treats Taiwan and Japan as the same target. At a dinner on the eve of the forum, he said this year's sessions would focus on the outlook for Taiwan-Japan defence-industrial cooperation, CM Media reported.