July 2, 2025

Akahata editorial (excerpts)

With a possible “Taiwan contingency” in mind, a former government bureaucrat and a former top officer of the Self-Defense Forces have made a “nuclear sharing” proposal aimed at collaborative operations involving nuclear weapons between the SDF and the U.S. military.

The proposal points out that an SDF’s enemy base attack could lead to counterattacks, which involves a risk that the “enemy may escalate the situation to the use of nuclear arms.” As measures to deal with this, the proposal stresses the “need for Japan-U.S. joint efforts in escalation response and control”.

In this regard, what the proposal states is to nurture specialists by sending SDF officers to U.S. military units which operate, maintain, and manage nuclear weapons and to hold discussions on Japan-U.S. joint operations including the issue of SDF support for the U.S. use of nuclear capability in each stage of battle escalation.

The proposal demands the revision of the principle of not allowing the entry into Japan of nuclear weapons, one of Japan’s Three Non-Nuclear Principles, by stating that under this rule, in the event of a “Taiwan contingency”, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force will be unable to deploy to Japan their nuclear-equipped weapon systems, though they are capable of striking China, which reduces the effectiveness of U.S. extended deterrence.

At the April 2024 Japan-U.S. summit meeting, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and U.S President Joe Biden reaffirmed “the critical importance of continuing to enhance U.S. extended deterrence, bolstered by Japan’s defense capabilities.”

Following the summit meeting, the Japanese and U.S. governments in December 2024 drew up guidelines for extended deterrence. The guidelines reportedly include a provision that the U.S. will communicate with Japan regarding the use of U.S. nuclear weapons in the event of an emergency. (Yomiuri Shimbun dated December 29, 2024)

In addition to the creation of a forum for Japan-U.S. discussions on “extended deterrence”, the collaboration of the SDF with U.S. military unis capable of carrying out strikes using nuclear weapons is underway. This is shown by the fact that the SDF and the U.S. military routinely hold joint military drills in areas near Kyushu and Okinawa with Air SDF aircraft and nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 strategic bombers participating.

In Japan, the only atomic bombed country in the world, any attempt to directly involve the SDF in the use of nuclear weapons is absolutely unacceptable.