Japan's non-nuclear weapons policy

On 28 July 1955, the U.S. announced its intention to equip military bases in Japan with Honest Johns, conventional missiles which could also be fitted with atomic warheads.

Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) President Eisaku Satō was elected Prime Minister in December 1964 (only a month after China revealed its nuclear weapons capability with a test explosion).

Although privately supportive of Japanese nuclearization, circumstances led Prime Minister Satō to first articulate the now-standard Three Non-Nuclear Principles, and he is remembered for his contributions to non-proliferation.

Amid anxiety over U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, aggression between North and South Korea, and tense Cross-Strait relations, this stipulation served to reassure the Diet that the nuclear option would still be considered if any of the conflicts escalated to threaten Japanese national security.

In 1970, as desired by the U.S. but after much hesitation and with some key stipulations, Japan signed the NPT; and in 1972, relieved of U.S. nuclear weapons, Okinawa reverted to Japanese rule.

In his Nobel Lecture (on the seventh anniversary of his original statement to the Diet), Satō reiterated and discussed the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and expressed hope and confidence that future governments would adopt them as well.

Public petitions after Kobe's return to Japan culminated in an 18 March 1975 resolution by the city council to prohibit nuclear-armed vessels from entering the port.

Amid the presence of nuclear-powered U.S. vessels and concerns that the government allowed nuclear-armed warships into Japanese ports (which was later confirmed),[citation needed] this resolution became the first major application of the three non-nuclear principles.

In October 1999, Deputy Vice Minister of Defense Shingo Nishimura proposed to the Diet (as stated in a previous interview) that, in light of the North Korean threat, serious debate on Japan's nuclearization should begin.

[9] In May 2002 Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe repeated the observation of Kishi that Article 9 did not preclude Japan from owning sufficiently small (strictly defensive) nuclear weapons, including ICBMs and atomic bombs.

In June of that year, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, in an off-the-record talk with reporters (for which he later took responsibility), remarked further that "circumstances and public opinion could require Japan to possess nuclear weapons".