February 15, 2018

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Fujino Yasufumi at a House Budget Committee meeting on February 14 said that the new Nuclear Posture Review the U.S. Trump administration recently published will increase the likelihood of the bringing-in of U.S. nuclear weapons into Japan.

Criticizing the Abe government for highly praising this NPR, Fujino demanded the withdrawal of Japan's support for the new U.S. nuclear policy.

According to the new NPR, the U.S. "will maintain, and enhance as necessary, the capability to forward deploy nuclear bombers and DCA (allied dual capable aircraft) around the world", including Northeast Asia, and "will maintain the range of flexible nuclear capabilities needed to preclude nuclear or non-nuclear aggression against the United States".

In other words, the new NPR is very different from those in the past, greatly opening up the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan are fully aware of this policy shift.

Already, F-35A stealth fighter jets onto which the U.S. will incorporate nuclear-capabilities sometime in the future are temporarily being deployed to the U.S. Kadena base in Okinawa.

In addition, since 2010, the U.S. has been pursuing a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) as a replacement for nuclear-tipped Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Fujino said, "With this new nuclear policy, U.S. nuclear weapons become deployable in Japan, too. Then, Japan's Three Nonnuclear Principles (not produce, possess, or allow the entry of nuclear weapons into Japan) will collapse."

PM Abe in response justified his endorsement of the new U.S. NPR, saying, "The U.S. understands Japan's position with the Three Nonnuclear Principles. So, no nuclear weapons will likely be brought into our country."

Fujino by saying, "The entry of nuclear weapons into Japan may become a reality one day," questioned the lack of consistency between the no-nuke principles of Japan and the nuclear policy of its ally, the United States.