The UAVs would replace importation of U.S.-made UAVs.

The plan will ignite debate in Parliament about whether such a massive investment is a wise use of taxpayer money when the end result is likely to be inferior to existing U.S. aircraft.

UAVs could be useful, however, for detecting suspicious vessels ion nearby waters and in defending outlying islands and could contribute to missile defense by providing surveillance on North Korean ballistic missile launches.

Japan began basic research on UAVs in fiscal 2003 and has spent $21.8 million up to now. But it does not have universal support, and Defense Agency Director Gen. Yoshinori Ono has indicated that buying U.S.-made UAVs might still be an option.

"We would like to compare the costs of purchasing the planes from other countries and manufacturing them domestically."

Some experts said that some in the Defense Agency are hoping to protect the Japanese defense technology infrastructure from becoming ever more reliant on U.S. weapons systems. Others in the Japanese military are concerned that the UAV project would be a repeat of the costly F-2 support fighter, which Japan decided to jointly develop with the United States because it did not want to buy foreign models.

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