TOKYO (Reuters) – As Japan looks for a quick, resolute response to North Korea’s growing missile threat, some defence policymakers in Tokyo say it may be time to reconsider non-nuclear pledges and invite US nuclear weapons on to its soil..
TOKYO (Reuters) – As Japan looks for a quick, resolute response to North Korea’s growing missile threat, some defence policymakers in Tokyo say it may be time to reconsider non-nuclear pledges and invite US nuclear weapons on to its soil.
Japan, the only country to suffer nuclear attack, upholds three non-nuclear principles that commit it not to possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons on to its territory that were adopted five decades ago.
“Perhaps it’s time for our three principles to become two, ” a senior defence policymaker told Reuters, suggesting nuclear weapons be allowed into Japan. He asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
North Korea, pursuing its weapons programmes in defiance of international condemnation, fired an intermediate ballistic missile over Japan last week, prompting authorities to sound sirens and advise residents to take cover.
On Sunday (Sept 3) , North Korea tested a nuclear device that had a yield estimated at ten times that of the atom bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima in 1945.
Inviting US nuclear weapons would be an attempt by Japan to jolt China, North Korea’s sole major ally, to do more to rein in its neighbour by showing there are consequences to North Korean provocations that threaten its neighbours and destabilise the region, the policymaker said.
A simple way to do this could be for a nuclear-armed US submarine to operate from one of the US Navy bases in Japan, he said, a move bound to infuriate China.
