Japanese PM Takaichi declines explicit pledge to maintain non-nuclear principles

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Thursday failed to explicitly pledge that Japan will maintain its non-nuclear principles, simply saying the government “is upholding” the long-held policy, as the country marked the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

At a press conference after a memorial ceremony in the western Japanese city, Takaichi said Japan will promote “realistic and practical” efforts towards a world without nuclear weapons, repeating the wording she used in her speech at the ceremony, which she attended as prime minister for the first time.

Her government is reportedly considering rethinking the three principles of not possessing, producing or allowing nuclear weapons in Japan as it plans to revise a set of key national security documents by the end of this year.

“It’s premature to comment on the final form of the wording as we are in the middle of work to revise the documents before year-end,” Takaichi, known for her hawkish views on national security, told reporters.

“However, it remains unchanged that Japan firmly upholds the three non-nuclear principles in the direction of its policy,” she said.

Recent prime ministers, including Shigeru Ishiba and Fumio Kishida, said in their speeches at the annual ceremonies marking the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9 that Japan will maintain the non-nuclear principles.

But the late prime minister Shinzo Abe, Takaichi’s political mentor, refrained in his 2015 address from referring to the principles, the only time he omitted mentioning them during his second stint as prime minister that lasted for about seven years and nine months from December 2012.