Japan Shifts Its Stand on Ruling Out A-Bomb

In a move rich in historical irony, Japan backed away Thursday from its decades-old role as the world’s staunchest opponent of nuclear weapons, suggesting that it may reserve the right to develop nuclear capability in the future if a neighbor like North Korea acquires the bomb.

At the summit meeting of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations in Tokyo, Japanese officials refused to put their government on record as endorsing an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The treaty, which is to expire in 1995, sets down procedures to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

Because of Japan’s objections, the G-7 nations watered down language in the communique about extending the treaty that they released Thursday. It said the extension is an “objective” of the seven countries but that not all of them back the idea without qualification.

In the 48 years since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, Japan has remained the only nation in the world whose population has been subjected to atomic attack.

Throughout that period, opposition to the use or spread of nuclear weapons has been the lodestar of Japanese foreign policy.

Even in the 1950s, when Tokyo followed Washington’s lead on virtually everything else, anti-nuclear feelings ran so deep that Japanese officials urged the Dwight D. Eisenhower Administration to stop testing nuclear weapons.

Now, Tokyo’s shift on the issue is one of the most powerful signs yet of how drastically the world is changing in the post-Cold War era.

Foreign Minister Kabun Muto insisted Thursday that Japan’s reluctance to approve an indefinite extension of the treaty stemmed from a lack of preparation on the issue.

“I think there should be more national debate, so that we can have more consensus within this country,” said Muto.

But another Foreign Ministry official acknowledged that there is now some fear in Japan that it will find itself without weapons in an over-armed world.

“We are thinking of a hypothetical situation in which Japan is alone, naked with other countries having increasing nuclear capabilities and we face an increasing military threat,” this official said.

Over the last two years, North Korea has apparently moved closer to having a nuclear weapon; Asian scholars and experts have warned repeatedly that if the unpredictable Pyongyang regime becomes a nuclear power, South Korea and Japan will feel compelled to follow suit.

Japanese officials insist that there has been no major change and that Japan has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons.

“There is a psychological fear among some people that Japan will go nuclear. But we have an allergy toward things nuclear,” the Foreign Ministry official said.

Clinton Administration officials voiced sympathy for Japan’s position.

“I have no doubt in my mind where the Japanese will end up,” said one senior U.S. official, meaning that ultimately Japan will endorse an indefinite extension of the treaty.

But he and other U.S. sources admitted that the talks with Japan about an extension bogged down last March, when North Korea suddenly surprised the world by announcing its intention to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty.

The treaty spells out procedures for international inspections of each country’s nuclear plants and other facilities, to make sure that nuclear fuel is not being secretly diverted to a weapons program. Last month, North Korea relented and said it would suspend its withdrawal from the treaty, but it has still not agreed to international nuclear inspections on its territory.

Officials said Japan would like to see some conditions attached before it accepts an indefinite extension. One such condition might be an assurance of disarmament.

“If there is an agreement with nuclear countries about disarmament, then it will feel safer for non-nuclear powers,” a Foreign Ministry official said. ‘Once we go into indefinite NPT (non-proliferation treaty) extension, we have to have political and military assurance of a stable environment.”

There has been some international concern about the possibility that Japan might be trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability ever since it began importing plutonium from abroad earlier this year and stockpiling it for its breeder reactor program.

Plutonium is an invaluable ingredient in the production of nuclear weapons. It is also the key ingredient in the breeder reactor, a nuclear power generator that produces more fissionable nuclear fuel than it consumes.

Japanese officials have said repeatedly that the plutonium is only for energy purposes, prompted by the need to reduce their nation’s dependence on oil from the Middle East.

The United States, Britain, France and other countries have abandoned breeder reactor programs, and Japan is now alone in pursuing such a project. The Japanese government also recently began construction of a large plutonium reprocessing plant in Rokkasho that will give the nation the ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The apparent shift in Japan’s nuclear policy is likely to cause concern among its neighbors, who have bitter memories of Japanese expansionism in the 1930s and 1940s.

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