Nuclear Claims

Nonetheless, claims that Japan could be moving to 'go nuclear' have begun to mount quite markedly, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom, from the latter half of 1993. This has caused a good deal of consternation in Japan. The bases for such claims have generally been cited as North Korea's suspected development of nuclear weapons coupled with its missile development programme, and Japan's programme for the peaceful use of plutonium coupled with its civilian H-2 rocket development programme.

On 31 October 1993 The Washington Post carried a long piece on the subject in the 'Outlook' commentary and opinion section. As the lead feature it showed a huge nuclear mushroom cloud spanning the entire column, with maps of Japan and the Korean Peninsula entwined around its base. The cloud portion of the illustration was emblazoned with the headline, 'A Yen for the Bomb?-Nervous Japan Rethinks the Nuclear Option.' The article warned that the Japanese government's unwillingness to accept the unconditional indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) indicated that the country could be considering converting its plutonium program to military uses sometime in the not too far distant future [6].

Some days later, on 3 November 1993, four experts appeared before a hearing of the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. All testified that they believed possession of nuclear weapons by North Korea would inevitably lead to a Japanese decision to arm itself likewise [7]. Then on 30 January 1994, Democratic Senator Sam Nunn and Republican Jack Kemp appeared on the NBC TV programme 'Meet the Press' and expressed their concerns that Japan could very well abandon its long-held non-nuclear policy depending on how the North Korean situation develops [8]. It appears that a considerable number of influential politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties harbour similar concerns.

Claims that Japan could be moving to arm itself with nuclear weapons have not been confined to the United States. The 30 January 1994 issue of Britain's Sunday Times, for example, carried a front-page story entitled 'Japan to "Go Nuclear" in Asian Arms Race', and reported similar growing fears within the British government [9]. On the next day, the Independent carried a report entitled 'Japanese Rocket Fuels Fears of Arms Race in East Asia'. This report strongly implied the existence of a covert military intention behind Japan's civilian H-2 rocket development program and that the Japanese government was keeping open the option of converting its rocket technology to inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology if it judged that to be necessary [10].

There have also been a number of scholarly works which have entertained the idea of a nuclear-armed Japan. Most notably, in the Autumn 1993 issue of International Security, Kenneth N. Waltz, one of the most distinguished contemporary scholars of international relations, published a paper which gained wide attention among experts in this field. Waltz argues within the framework of his neorealist world view - currently the dominant theory in the discipline of international relations - that Japan ultimately has no choice but to join the nuclear club [11]. His is the principal academic discussion of the theoretical possibilities of Japan going nuclear. His argument is likely to have a considerable effect, not only on scholars, but on politicians and bureaucrats as well. As such, his views regarding Japan and nuclear weapons deserve close scrutiny.

In Waltz's view [12], the international political system is characterised as being in a state of anarchy. That is, it is without any central authority able to exert control over the constituent sovereign states. Each state must therefore fend for itself in seeking to achieve its own security and prosperity (the principle of self-help). This tends to make individual states highly averse to becoming dependent in any form on other states. Dependence, in an anarchical environment, would mean placing the security and prosperity of one country in the hands of another. In the real world, however, the only countries that can hope to approximate self-help in all areas are the 'great powers'. The weaker countries have no choice but to rely on others in attempting to steer a course of national survival. As weaker states gain in strength they are likely to seek as quickly as possible to throw off this reliance and to become more independent.

There is no reason to believe, according to Waltz, that Japan is an exception to this rule. Its economic strength is now on a par with that of the great powers, and one can find no historical precedent for a nation continuing to deny itself for any length of time the attributes of a great power, once it has achieved such a level of strength. Indeed, signs of dissatisfaction with their country's direction have appeared, says Waltz, among the Japanese people, and the nation could very well begin finally to move down the path of independence as a great power. Should the country actually make such a decision, it is likely that it will no longer hesitate to arm itself with nuclear weapons, in the same manner as the other powers, thereby obtaining for itself the most cost-effective and the most reliable deterrent [13].

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