Chinese nuclear experts believe Japan could build nuclear weapons in less than 3 years

One of Henry Kissinger’s final and most sobering predictions before his death was that Japan would eventually pursue nuclear weapons.

In a 2023 interview with The Economist, Kissinger warned that Japan was “heading towards becoming a nuclear power in five years”.

Chinese nuclear experts estimate that Japan has the political motivation but also the technical capacity to develop nuclear weapons in less than three years, echoing Kissinger’s warning that Japan harbours ambitions to revive its pre-war military stature when the opportunity arises.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi touched upon the red line of Japan’s three non-nuclear principles last month, seeking to create a legal opening.

Last week, a senior official from the Japanese prime minister’s office responsible for advising Takaichi on security policy told Asahi Shimbun that given the increasingly severe security environment around Japan, he believed “Japan should possess nuclear weapons”.

However, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara reaffirmed on December 18 that the country’s decades-old pledge to never possess nuclear weapons by stating that its nuclear policy had not changed.

  

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