Ruling bloc kicks off first working-level talks on Japan security strategy overhaul

The ruling parties on Tuesday opened their first working-level talks on overhauling Japan’s security strategy by the year’s end, with division over a decades-old ban on bringing nuclear weapons into the country and acquiring nuclear-powered submarines seen as key points of contention.

The Japan Innovation Party (JIP), also known as Nippon Ishin no Kai, wants both issues addressed in the revision of three key security documents, while the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) omitted both from its June recommendations. 

LDP lawmaker and former Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada and senior JIP lawmaker Seiji Maehara presided over the meeting. Participants said there was no substantive discussion of the two contentious issues that day.

Under Japan’s “three nonnuclear principles,” first articulated in 1967, the country has pledged to neither possess nor produce nuclear weapons and to bar their introduction into its territory. The JIP is pressing for a “realistic review” of the third tenet. 

Maehara told The Japan Times in an earlier interview that the U.S. could deploy nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles as early as 2032, arguing that Tokyo should “review its policy so American vessels that carry nuclear weapons could enter Japanese ports or waters in a crisis.”

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has said the principles remain as policy but has left open the possibility of allowing temporary port calls of U.S. vessels carrying nuclear weapons in a national emergency. In 2010, then-Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada set out that possibility as an exception to the principles. 

“I will not prejudge the specific contents of the revisions to the three documents,” Takaichi told parliament last month after a JIP lawmaker called for bolstering U.S. deterrence capabilities for regional stability. 

She drew a firmer line on a form of nuclear sharing in which American nuclear weapons would be stationed in Japan in peacetime and operated by Japanese forces in wartime, calling such a framework “unacceptable.”

Still, the LDP’s June proposal mentions strengthening the credibility of Washington’s commitment to defend Japan, including with nuclear weapons.

On submarines, citing China’s expanding naval reach, Maehara said Japan should acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines “as quickly as possible” while keeping its conventional fleet.

“As allies and like-minded countries coordinate underwater operations across the Pacific, Japan cannot afford to become the weak link by operating less-capable submarines,” he said in the same interview.

Voices within the LDP have consistently urged caution. 

Former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said obtaining nuclear-powered submarines must be weighed carefully given their substantial costs, while Yoshimasa Hayashi, a former foreign minister, said acquiring such vessels under the government’s interpretation of the Atomic Energy Basic Act would be difficult. 

Takaichi told parliament last month that the government had not yet decided on new propulsion systems, even as Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has repeatedly called for open debate free of taboos.  

A compromise could see nuclear-powered submarines make it into the new strategy as a subject for later study. 

“With the global security environment deteriorating so rapidly … we urgently need to rethink the role of the Self-Defense Forces and how we defend our country,” Koizumi told a news conference Tuesday. 

He added that it was “important for ruling parties to move forward together” and that the government would take the advice into account as it worked toward the security document revisions. 

Future meetings are also expected to address how much Japan should spend on defense. The LDP’s June proposal gave no numerical target. The JIP has proposed spending at least 2% of nominal gross domestic product, using fiscal 2026, which began in April, as the base year, and cited 3% or more as a benchmark for increases over the medium to long term.

The discussion comes as Washington has urged Japan and other allies to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense and carry more of the regional defense burden.

The two parties plan to continue discussions internally and aim to submit recommendations to the government by early December.