Japan: No-Nukes Policy 

By Staff, Agencies 

Japan reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to forgo nuclear weapons after domestic media reported that a senior security official had suggested the country consider acquiring them as a deterrent against potential adversaries.

According to public broadcaster NHK and other outlets, the unnamed official, described as working within Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s office, argued that Japan’s deteriorating security environment warranted nuclear weapons, while acknowledging that such a move would face major political obstacles.

Speaking at a regular press briefing in Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said Japan’s nuclear policy remained unchanged. He declined to comment directly on the reported remarks or to say whether the official in question would continue to serve in government.

The comments come amid a broader debate within Japan about its postwar security posture. A Reuters investigation published in August found growing political and public openness to loosening the country’s three non-nuclear principles, which prohibit possessing, developing, or allowing nuclear weapons on Japanese territory.

That shift has been driven in part by concerns over the reliability of US security guarantees under US President Donald Trump, as well as what Japan perceives as rising threats from nuclear-armed China, Russia, and the DPRK.

Japan hosts the largest overseas concentration of US military forces and has relied on its security alliance with Washington for decades.

Within Takaichi’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, some lawmakers have argued that the United States should be permitted to deploy nuclear weapons in Japan, on submarines or other platforms, as a way to strengthen deterrence.

Takaichi herself fueled speculation last month by declining to clarify whether her administration would maintain the three non-nuclear principles when it drafts a new defense strategy next year.

Any discussion of acquiring or hosting nuclear weapons remains highly sensitive in Japan, the only country to have suffered atomic bombings. On 6 and 9 August 1945, during World War II, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The attacks killed an estimated 150,000 to 246,000 people, most of them civilians, and remain the only instances in which nuclear weapons have been used in warfare.