Abe: Japan will not make nuclear weapons

In the wake of North Korea’s test of a “nuclear” weapon, many foreign media sources are writing articles about the possibility that Japan will make some nukes to protect itself. However, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared that Japan will not change its nuclear weapons policy:

Japan does not plan to possess nuclear capability despite North Korea’s reported nuclear test and its earlier missile test-fires, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday.

Asked if Japan will uphold its “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” even if North Korea deploys nuclear missiles, Abe said, “I am not thinking of changing the principles at all.”

If Abe ever changes his mind, Japan has the capability to build a nuclear weapon is as little as a few days…

3 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - October 11, 2006 at 10:30 am

Categories: General Japan, Politics Tags:

nightfish

One of the guys in the linked articles gives another estimate – 6 months. That one sounds much more realistic. I am not sure that 24 hours are even sufficient to assemble a nuclear device from parts. Given that Japan can’t even launch man to space, they clearly tend to overestimate their technological power. I would even say that they bluster – like “if I fart, you’ll be gone with the wind”.
http://www.japanprobe.com James (admin)

nightfish:

The one article says 24 hours, which is probably an exaggeration, but the Japan Times article says it could be as little as 1 week. Six months is a conservative estimate. I think that the speed of being able to produce a nuclear weapon or launch a man into space probably depends a lot on the amount of money and effort the Japanese choose to put into such a project. If they chose to invest huge amounts of money in their space program as the Soviets and Americans did back in the day, I don’t doubt that they’d be able to launch an astronaut into space. Since manned missions are not the current priority of their space program it seems unfair to use their lack of manned spacecraft as proof of their technical ineptitude.
http://kyklops.blogspot.com/ kyklops

There’s really no reason to doubt that countries like Japan, Canada, etc. couldn’t throw a few nukes together pretty quickly if they really wanted to. Delivery systems are another question entirely. Japan probably could, however, simply fly over there untouched and drop one…

Abe: Japan will not make nuclear weapons

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