2002 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Nuclear Weapons and Japan : Atomic policies of the Kishi Administration, 1957-1960
| Project/Area Number |
13620084
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Politics
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| Research Institution | Hitotsubashi University |
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Principal Investigator |
TANAKA Takehiko Hitotsubashi University, Graduate School of Law, Professor, 大学院・法学研究科, 教授 (10236599)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2002
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| Keywords | Japan's foreign policy / Kishi Nobusuke / cold war / nuclear weapons / atomic energy / Britain / United States / strategic nuclear |
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| Research Abstract |
This project deals with the role of nuclear weapons in Japan's post war foreign relations and domestic politics during the period of the Kishi administration from 1957 to 1960. Careful empirical and historical investigations based upon close examinations of the diplomatic documents declassified in Britain and the United States suggest that the Kishi administration adopted complicated policies of ambivalent nature. Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke supported openly the movements in Japan against nuclear tests conducted by the US, Britain and the Soviet Union., but at the same time, he clearly advocated Japan's future possession of nuclear weapons within the framework of the peaceful constitution. While he seemed aware that it would be impossible for her to produce or possess strategic nuclear forces, it was clear that Kishi paid much attention to small size tactical nuclear weapons, which he sometimes called 'clean nuclear weapons'. This ambivalence was kept coherent within his policy formu
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la, because his most significant political aim was to complete Japan's independence. For the purpose, it was essential to mobilize some nationalist sentiments in Japanese anti-nuclear public opinion. But at the same time, possessing tactical nuclear weapons must have been supposed to reduce Japan's military dependence upon the United States. Another finding was that the Japanese government was not at all sincere or genuine in protesting against the nuclear tests conducted by the US and Britain. During the Kishi period, the government conveyed several times the resolutions passed in the diet which requested the Americans and the British to atop the tests in 1957. But even Kishi himself stated just before a British nuclear test in the Christmas islands that Japan could possess nuclear weapons without violating Article 9 of the constitution. Moreover the Japanese diplomats who actually handed the protests to the opposite numbers in Washington or London, usually saying that they should not take those protests seriously. It was natural that the US and British officials did not paid much attention to the Japanese protests movements which they did not regard genuine or sincere. Finally, the Anglo-Japanese negotiations for atomic energy cooperation during the late 1950s seem to have taken a very significant role in the policy conception held by the Japanese pro-nuclear leaders. Though the Americans could prevent the Japanese from even trying to produce their own nuclear weapons by controlling the amount of enriched uranium to supply the Japanese, they could expect to have certain amount of plutonium from the British Calder Hall type reactor. As the result of the Anglo-Japanese negotiations, the Japanese finally purchased the Calder Hall reactor from Britain knowing that the reactor was for civilian and military purposes. It is rather natural to assume that the Japanese leaders could search a way to make their country nuclearized in military terms Less
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Research Products
(4 results)
