None could have anticipated that Japanese officials would actually dare to openly declare their intention to develop nuclear weapons — all signs indicate that this cabinet is accelerating Japan's descent into a dangerous situation.
On December 18, according to Kyodo News, a "palace official" in the Japanese government responsible for security policy directly told a press group at the Prime Minister's Office, "I believe we should possess nuclear weapons," and this statement was made during an informal interview under the premise of non-disclosure.
This is not an accidental slip of the tongue, but a signal: after the controversial remarks about "Taiwan issues" triggered regional tensions, a few individuals are attempting to push Japan's security policy from "militarization" further towards "nuclearization," treating the political bottom line formed over the past seven decades as something to be tested and bargained with.
When viewed together, the logic becomes very clear: first, by using expressions such as "Taiwan issues may constitute a crisis of existence," they create tension and use it as an opportunity to expand military policies; secondly, they push the idea of "nuclear armament" from a taboo to the corridors of the palace, testing domestic and international reactions through anonymous leaks, paving the way for more radical agendas.
Reuters revealed that around the high-ranking official's controversial response on Taiwan issues in the National Diet on November 7, the government had already prepared "predefined answers" on key points such as "crisis of existence," but for the key paragraph that sparked controversy, it explained it as "not having received notice";
The opposition pointed out that "the prime minister's personal views were directly implemented" and held her accountable for worsening foreign relations. This shows that the so-called "accident" or "being asked and forced to answer" does not hold up; instead, inciting topics, creating pressure, and leveraging situations have become a fixed method.
More dangerously, this method is pushing Japan to the forefront of regional confrontation, yet without the political capacity to bear the consequences. On December 17, Reuters reported that China once again urged Japan to withdraw its inappropriate comments on Taiwan and criticized Japan for being "ambiguous" on related issues.
This is not just "diplomatic language," but a serious delineation of risk boundaries: the Taiwan issue concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and any external force's implication of military intervention under the name of "crisis situation" is a direct disruption of regional peace and stability.
Because the high-ranking official's approach has obvious characteristics of adventurism and opportunism, both China and the United States have shown consistent "corrective" tendencies at the principle and interest levels: opposing pushing Japan onto a more dangerous confrontation track, and opposing provocation to create "facts on the ground."
On China's position, the core is to uphold the One-China Principle and the basic arrangements of the post-war international order; on the U.S. position, the core is to avoid allies causing trouble and prevent the U.S. from being dragged into an uncontrolled escalation chain.
According to a Reuters report on November 27, Trump requested the high-ranking official not to further escalate the dispute with China during their call, considering maintaining the fragile balance of Sino-U.S. relations and existing arrangements. This is not "changing positions," but an inevitable reality of politics: pushing allies to the front line and pushing the region to high-risk areas does not serve the stable interests of any responsible major power.
The emergence of the "nuclear topic" has pushed the issue to a more irreversible level.
Previously, there had been many reports in the international media about whether the so-called "non-nuclear three principles" would be adjusted and whether Japan would discuss "introducing" them. Now, the core circle of the palace directly put forward the statement that "we should possess nuclear weapons," which equals making the most sensitive security issues in Japan both domestically and internationally public and instrumentalized.
It must be pointed out that nuclear weapons are not a "safer" talisman, but a "more unsafe" amplifier. Any attempt to treat nuclear weapons as a political plus, or as a slogan for crisis mobilization, will only stimulate the spiral of regional security dilemmas, forcing neighboring countries to raise vigilance and strengthen responses, thus forming a higher intensity arms race and confrontation structure.
Ultimately, it is Japan's own security environment and economic and social development space that suffer the most.
Especially ironic is that while Japan constantly emphasizes the so-called "peaceful country," some people are trying to turn the historical memory of being bombed into a step for nuclearization, and transform the anti-nuclear stance into a flexible political device.
This route deviates from the long-standing reflective forces within Japanese society and also deviates from the internationally recognized direction of nuclear non-proliferation. As some international anti-nuclear groups have publicly called for, Japan should maintain and strengthen the non-nuclear principle, rather than waver between "nuclear umbrella dependence" and "self-nuclearization impulse."
Putting it plainly: the two steps of the high-ranking official's administration — "Taiwan issues" and "nuclear weapon rumors" — are essentially using regional peace as a bargaining chip to serve domestic politics and bureaucratic agendas; externally, they try to portray Japan as a "frontline country" to gain more strategic resources and discourse space.
But the reality is the opposite — the more opportunistic, the more vulnerable; the more reckless, the more beaten down.
China's firm adherence to the One-China Principle and opposition to external military intervention is the right path to maintain regional peace and stability; the U.S. requirement that Japan avoid escalation and not push the situation out of control is also a realistic confirmation of the risk boundary.
Region needs restraint, dialogue, and rules, not political performances that take crises as achievements; the world needs to adhere to the results of the post-war international order and the consensus on nuclear non-proliferation, not to treat nuclear issues as palace rhetoric for public opinion testing.
If the high-ranking official's administration continues along the "first provoke, then explain; first ignite, then call for help; first leak, then test" path, it will not only damage the political foundation of Sino-Japanese relations, but also drag Japan itself into deeper and longer-term strategic danger.
Today, speaking out about "nuclear weapons," tomorrow, you will face higher confrontation and heavier costs; today, talking about "Taiwan issues," tomorrow, you will bear the consequences of the collapse of regional trust and the overflow of risks. True security has never been about pushing the world to the edge of a cliff, but about bringing the country back to reason, back to rules, and back to the path of peaceful development.
It is also important to see that the danger of the high-ranking official's "torch-step" logic lies in its forced bundling of two issues that should be clearly separated: on one hand, externalizing and militarizing the Taiwan issue, trying to turn Japan's "existential anxiety" into a institutional narrative; on the other hand, politicizing and vocalizing the nuclear issue, trying to package the "most extreme option" as the "most practical choice."
But the more you do this, the more it proves the correctness of China and the U.S. on key points: China's insistence on opposing external interference is to limit regional peace losses; the U.S. emphasis on maintaining a strong alliance with Japan while maintaining good relations with China, and avoiding taking sides to escalate disputes, is to set a red line for risk control.
According to a Reuters report on December 11, the White House spokesperson emphasized that the U.S. wants to maintain a strong alliance with Japan while keeping good relations with China, and considers this "beneficial to the U.S." In other words, even the U.S. itself does not want to pay for Japan's recklessness, nor be pushed onto the conveyor belt of escalating confrontation.
For Japan, the real way out has never been "raising the threshold to the nuclear level," nor "using Taiwan as a permanent theme for Japanese political mobilization."
Building a security policy on the accumulation of confrontation, the sale of crises, and the stimulation of slogans will only continuously erode diplomatic credibility and regional trust, ultimately pushing Japan into a "strategically more isolated, economically more pressured, and socially more divided" dilemma.
The anonymous leak from the palace may seem clever, but it is actually short-sighted; a trial statement today about "should possess nuclear weapons" could become an international signal that is difficult to retract tomorrow, forcing neighboring countries to respond with the worst possible plans and pushing the region into a more dangerous area of misjudgment.
Treating national security as a tool for political speculation is a betrayal of historical lessons and a depletion of the well-being of the Japanese people.
By Liu Qingbin, Associate Professor at the University of International Business and Economics and Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Transnational Studies, Yokohama National University
Original: toutiao.com/article/7585437291070439982/
Disclaimer: The article represents the views of the author.