Letter from Nikkei Asia's editor: K-defense

Hello from Tokyo. Thanks to the global popularity of South Korean entertainment exports such as BTS, "Squid Game" and more, everyone knows about K-pop and K-dramas. The K-wave phenomenon underscores South Korea's status as one of Asia's biggest soft powers.

Now the country is trying to repeat that international success in a hard-power area: the weapons industry. Call it "K-defense." This week's Big Story focuses on the push by President Yoon Suk Yeol -- who has been touting the slogan "peace through strength" -- to make South Korea a major exporter of weapons to the world.

South Korea is already the ninth-largest arms exporter, but Yoon wants to jump to No. 4. This ambitious goal is influencing neighboring Japan, another soft-power titan thanks to J-pop, anime, video games and more. Tokyo is trying to follow Seoul's defense-industry success, but I wonder whether "J-defense" will ever be possible.

Because Japan's constitution renounces war, the country long refrained from exporting arms, as doing so was considered indirectly participating in war. However, under the government led by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan revised these rules and decided to promote defense exports under certain conditions.

Nevertheless, the political allergy to arms exports remains strong in Japan. A case in point is the ongoing debate over the joint development of next-generation fighter jets with Italy and the U.K. Komeito -- the Liberal Democratic Party's junior partner in the ruling coalition -- has not yet approved exporting the jet to third countries because it would essentially mean that Japan could export any type of weapon to any country.

This allergy is also reflected in the way Tokyo categorizes defense equipment as either "lethal" or