In seeking to grasp the structure used to stipulate Japan’s disarmament and non-proliferation policy, it can be said to be useful to become acquainted with the framework of the “Four Pillars of Nuclear Policy,” along with three primary factors and two dilemmas. To begin, the “Four Pillars of Nuclear Policy” refers to the four approaches comprising Japanese nuclear policy announced in the administrative policy speech delivered by the then Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in January of 1968. More specifically, this consists of the three “non-nuclear principles” (non-possession, non-production, and non-introduction of nuclear weapons); nuclear abolition and disarmament; reliance upon the US for nuclear deterrence; and peaceful use of nuclear energy. In retrospect, these four pillars have been generally upheld over the years to date.
It is also vital to consider three elements as the specific factors which effectively define Japanese nuclear policy. The first concerns the geopolitical conditions in East Asia. The second is the economic growth and its sustainability, and particularly the need for energy security. The third is the historical experiences which functioned to heighten anti-nuclear sentiment and momentum within Japan. Among these experiences, I am referring to the detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki toward the end of World War II (with Japan still the only nation to have endured atomic bombings), and the “Daigo Fukuryu Maru Incident” in 1954.
Meanwhile, as the outgrowth of these policies and the factors comprising their foundation, Japan has also been confronted with two dilemmas. The first comprises promotion of nuclear disarmament as the national mission of the sole country to ever come under atomic attack, versus the reality that within the current fierce strategic environment, the extended nuclear deterrence of the US has become indispensable for Japanese
security. The second dilemma concerns the fact that while Japan, as a nation severely poor in natural resources, has pursued the so-called nuclear fuel cycle rooted in the demands for energy security, that the nuclear fuel cycle is inevitably accompanied by the risk of nuclear proliferation.
Read the whole chapter here.
The views, conclusions and recommendations expressed in this report are solely those of its author(s) and do not reflect the view of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, or its employees.