Australia, Japan sign contracts to start $7 billion warship deal

Different government though.

Japan can actually deliver the ships so they won't have anything to worry about.

As an Australian, so do I.

Yeah, that was the previous prime minister who was part of the Liberal party (for reference to non Australians, the liberal party is Australias right wing party) They made ALOT of stupid mistakes including that submarine deal debacle. 

Australia always had a gap in anti submarine warfare and as china has become the biggest underwater power in the region a better ship was always due for the australians, both to replace the Anzac class and as an actual upgrade after decades of quite lacklaster capabilities. The choices were many for the australians, more Type 26 with better ASW were out pretty early as their precurament is already slow as they are, a change in design would would make them even slower to come into service. The japanese have mastered building of medium tonnage ships, with japan building 12 Mogami class frigates in barely 8 years, as speed of entry into service was one of the defining aspects of this precurament it became evident japan was the only one that could actually deliver modern frigates as quickly as asked.

Australia’s Anzac-class warships are old (built back in 1990’s-2000’s). They’ve been looking for a replacement, especially with an ever more aggressive China. Japan offered their upgraded Mogami-class warships, which meets the Australian Navy’s needs. More importantly though, Japan has the industry to build them fast and on-schedule, which was a big selling point b/c Australia wants these ships in the water as soon as possible.

Its the replacement for the ANZAC class in the Royal Australian navy. Mote importantly, its the first export order for Japanese warships. Given Japans Post war political consensus, the fact it starts exporting ships shows hoa little there is left of the post cold war order.

It's a manufacturing deal mostly. They making some war ships for us. It was between them and Germany iirc. But the advantage with Japan's deal is that we share the same part of the world.

Doubt it. Australia is making nuclear subs in-house, and I don't see that changing any time soon. The only way Japan gets in on that deal is to provide the stopgap subs in place of the Virginia class that the US will inevitably not give to us as part of their contribution to AUKUS.