Japan Moves to Write a Non-Nuclear Principles Exception Into Its Security Strategy; Atomic-Bomb Survivors and Hiroshima's Mayor Object
Japan's government is considering writing an explicit exception to the "not permitting nuclear weapons to be brought in" element of its Three Non-Nuclear Principles into the National Security Strategy, one of three security documents due for revision by the end of the year. The Asahi Shimbun reported on November 12 that a senior government official said on November 11 the Takaichi administration intends to allow nuclear weapons into Japan in certain emergency situations and to spell that exception out in the documents; the current strategy says the basic policy of adhering to the principles "will remain unchanged."
The proposed exception draws on a 2010 Diet answer by then foreign minister Katsuya Okada, who said a government could permit a temporary port call by a U.S. ship carrying nuclear weapons if Japan could not otherwise be defended. The Japan Innovation Party, the junior coalition partner, is pushing the change, arguing that U.S. submarines carrying low-yield nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles could call at Japanese ports after 2032 and that the exception should be prepared in advance. There is resistance inside the Liberal Democratic Party, where some see the idea as coming from circles around the prime minister's office and doubt that party consensus, let alone the Diet, will be easy. The ruling parties began talks on revising the three documents on November 10.
Opposition surfaced in force on November 11. Tanaka Satoshi, a representative director of Nihon Hidankyo, the atomic-bomb survivors' organisation that won the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, told the Asahi: "If the no-introduction principle starts to waver, there is no telling what will happen. This shows a failure to understand how frightening nuclear weapons are." He said the principles must not become a national policy that changes at a government's convenience. Survivors' group leaders in Nagasaki said changing one of the three principles would eventually pull the other two with it. Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui told a press conference on November 11 that the central government should treasure the history of adopting the principles as national policy and neither treat them lightly nor change them.
The Three Non-Nuclear Principles — not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons — were put forward by Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1967 and have stood as a national credo for the only country to have suffered atomic bombings. GSM reported on November 5 that the government was considering recording the exception in the new security strategy; the November 11 remarks move the idea from consideration toward a stated intent to write it into the documents, which are due to be revised by year-end.
（Source: The Asahi Shimbun）
Source: The Asahi Shimbun
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：广岛和平纪念碑（原爆圆顶馆）。照片：CC BY 2.5，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome). CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.
- 2026-11-05Japan Considers Writing an Exception to Its Non-Nuclear Principles Into the New Security Strategy: Allowing Nuclear Weapons In During an Emergency
- 2026-11-12Japan Moves to Write a Non-Nuclear Principles Exception Into Its Security Strategy; Atomic-Bomb Survivors and Hiroshima's Mayor ObjectThis story
