Feb 28 (Japan Times) - Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Sunday that Japan should break a long-standing taboo and hold an active debate on nuclear weapons – including a possible “nuclear-sharing” program similar to that of NATO – in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Japan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has its three non-nuclear principles, but it should not treat as a taboo discussions on the reality of how the world is kept safe,” Abe said during a television program.
Abe, who quit as prime minister in 2020 but remains highly influential as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s largest faction, noted that had Ukraine kept some of the nuclear weapons it inherited after the breakup of the Soviet Union instead of exchanging them for a security guarantee, it may not have faced an invasion by Russia.
Stressing what the government has repeatedly said is an “increasingly severe security environment” in Asia – including China’s growing assertiveness and North Korea’s nuclear program – Abe pointed to NATO’s nuclear-sharing arrangements as an example of how Japan could deter those and other threats.
“Japan should also consider various options in its discussions,” including nuclear sharing, Abe said during the program, which aired on Fuji Television.
The NATO program lets the United States keep its nuclear weapons in Europe under its custody, but allow for allies without such weapons to share them and take part in the decision-making process should they ever be used.
Japan, which saw the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki be devastated by atomic bombings at the end of World War II, is the only country to experience a nuclear attack. Under the country’s pacifist postwar Constitution, Tokyo relies on the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” to deter threats.
Japan’s three non-nuclear principles, first laid out in 1967, call for it not to possess, produce or allow nuclear weapons on the country’s territory, though the spirit of the latter has been secretly violated in the past.
Polling suggests the public remains steadfastly against the idea of Japan acquiring its own nuclear arsenal. But Abe hinted that a sharing agreement akin to NATO’s could be a more palatable option for the public.
