Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

's are a parliamentary

resolution Resolution(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate * Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body * New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual m ...

(never adopted into law) that have guided Japanese nuclear policy since their inception in the late 1960s, and reflect general public sentiment and national policy since the end of World War II. The tenets state that ''Japan shall neither possess nor manufacture

nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

s, nor shall it permit their introduction into Japanese

territory A territory is an area of land, sea, or space, particularly belonging or connected to a country, person, or animal. In international politics, a territory is usually either the total area from which a state may extract power resources or an ...

''. The principles were outlined by

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Eisaku Satō in a speech to the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ca ...

in 1967 amid negotiations over the return of

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. The

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

formally adopted the principles in 1971.

Overview

After the

atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki The United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945, respectively. The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the onl ...

, Japanese public sentiment grew firmly opposed to the presence of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil, or even in Japanese waters."Resolution on the Rejection of the Visit of Nuclear-Armed Warships into Kobe Port"
Kobe City Council, 18 March 1975. During Eisaku Satō's first term as Prime Minister, this opposition became a major obstacle to his campaign pledge to end the U.S. occupation of

, returning the island to Japanese control. The U.S. military was thought to keep nuclear weapons on the island, though it did not confirm or deny such weapons, and Satō faced opposition to reacquisition unless the nuclear presence was removed. As a compromise, Satō appeased the United States by bringing Japan into the

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation ...

(NPT) in exchange for a nuclear-free, Japan-controlled Okinawa. In the years leading up to this agreement, Satō was forced to appease public concerns that his administration might favor a nuclear weapons program; to this end, he introduced the Three Non-Nuclear Principles in a December 11, 1967, address to the Diet. (Actually, the principles of nonproduction, nonpossession, and nonintroduction had been stated by Defense Agency Director-general Kaneshichi Masuda that May.) Satō worried, though, that the principles might produce too great a restraint on Japan's defense. To lessen their restrictive effect on the military, in a speech the following February he placed the principles within the broader framework of his Four-Pillars Nuclear Policy. The pillars, in mimicry of the three pillars of the NPT, were # To promote the peaceful use of

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced ...

, # To work toward global

nuclear disarmament Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics * Nuclear power * Nuclear reactor * Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine * Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics *Nuclear space *Nucl ...

, # To rely on the extended U.S.

nuclear deterrent Nuclear strategy involves the development of doctrines and strategies for the production and use of nuclear weapons. As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends. In additi ...

# To support the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. The fourth pillar left room for policy change in the future, calling for Japan to abide by the principles "under the circumstances where Japan's national security is guaranteed by the other three policies". The Diet passed a resolution formally adopting the principles in 1971, though they were not made law. Eisaku Satō was presented with the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology ...

in 1974, in large part for his work toward Japan's entry into the NPT. 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. Every Prime Minister of Japan since Satō has publicly reaffirmed the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. However,

Japanese government The Government of Japan consists of legislative, executive and judiciary branches and is based on popular sovereignty. The Government runs under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan, adopted in 1947. It is a unitary sta ...

-sponsored studies have been carried out in the past—and are suspected by many to be ongoing—to assess the feasibility of developing a nuclear weapons program. In recent years public officials and nuclearization advocates have been unprecedentedly vocal in questioning the principles, but the public remains committed to them.

References

Eisaku Satō's Nobel Lecture
11 December 1974.

''Chūgoku Shimbun Peace News'', 2 June 2002. * Campbell, Kurt M. and Sunohara, Tsuyoshi (2004). "Japan: Thinking the Unthinkable". ''The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices'' Ch. 9: 218–253.

6 August 2005. {{nuclear power in Japan Nuclear weapons policy Nuclear technology in Japan Politics of Post-war Japan Foreign relations of Post-war Japan Japanese defence policies

Overview

See also

References