Three Non-Nuclear Principles

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In the years leading up to this agreement, Satō was forced to appease public concerns that his administration might favor a nuclear weapons program; to this end, he introduced the Three Non-Nuclear Principles in a December 11, 1967, address to the Diet. (Actually, the principles of nonproduction, nonpossession, and nonintroduction had been stated by Defense Agency Director-general Kaneshichi Masuda that May.) Satō worried, though, that the principles might produce too great a restraint on Japan's defense. To lessen their restrictive effect on the military, in a speech the following February he placed the principles within the broader framework of his Four-Pillars Nuclear Policy. The pillars, in mimicry of the three pillars of the NPT, were

1. To promote the peaceful use of nuclear power,
2. To work toward global nuclear disarmament,
3. To rely on the extended U.S.
   nuclear deterrent
4. To support the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.

The fourth pillar left room for policy change in the future, calling for Japan to abide by the principles "under the circumstances where Japan's national security is guaranteed by the other three policies".

The Diet passed a resolution formally adopting the principles in 1971, though they were not made law. Eisaku Satō was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1974, in large part for his work toward Japan's entry into the NPT. In his Nobel Lecture (on the seventh anniversary of his original statement to the Diet), Satō reiterated and discussed the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and expressed hope and confidence that future governments would adopt them as well.

Every Prime Minister of Japan since Satō has publicly reaffirmed the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. However,

• Japan's non-nuclear weapons policy
• Japanese nuclear weapon program
• Nuclear latency
• Nuclear umbrella

References

• Eisaku Satō's Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1974.
• "Non-nuclear principles to be reviewed". Chūgoku Shimbun Peace News, 2 June 2002.
• Campbell, Kurt M. and Sunohara, Tsuyoshi (2004). "Japan: Thinking the Unthinkable". The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices Ch. 9: 218–253.
  ISBN 0-8157-1331-2
• Address by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at the Hiroshima Memorial Service, 6 August 2005.