Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

146 • JAPAN’S THREE NON-NUCLEAR PRINCIPLES
September 1955, Japan joined GATT as a full member. The United
States strongly endorsed Japan’s accession to GATT because Japan’s
economic independence based on multilateral liberal trade would be
beneficial for the United States to fight the Cold War. In contrast,
Great Britain, France, Italy, and Spain strongly opposed Japan’s accession
because of their bad experience regarding Japan’s export
thrust with its low-price textile goods to the world market in the
1930s. In the end, Japan had to accept the imposition of GATT Article
35, Non-application of the Agreement Between Particular Contracting
Parties, stipulating that “A contracting party may withhold
application of its schedule of tariff concessions, or the entire agreement,
from another contracting party with which it has not entered
into tariff negotiations.” In short, Japan was excluded from the nondiscriminatory
principle of GATT. By the mid-1960s, the four major
European countries mentioned previously repealed their application
of GATT Article 35 in return for Japan’s acceptance of voluntary export
restraint, and still, in the 1960s, about 40 countries, including underdeveloped
ones (such as Chad in Africa) applied Article 35 to
Japan. Tokyo had to deal with the discriminatory status resulting
from GATT Article 35 until the World Trade Organization (WTO)
came into being 1995 as the successor to GATT. See also GENERAL
AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS AND TRADE (GATT).
JAPAN’S THREE NON-NUCLEAR PRINCIPLES. These are the
principles of not producing, not possessing, and not allowing the entry
of nuclear weapons into Japan. On 11 December 1967, at a meeting
of the Lower House Budget Committee, Prime Minister Eisaku
Sato clearly stated these three non-nuclear principles for the first
time. He reconfirmed them in an administrative policy speech made
at the Diet in January 1968. In November 1971, a Lower House plenary
session adopted a resolution of the three principles. It is habitually
suspected that U.S. naval vessels and combat aircraft are
equipped with nuclear weapons, but Tokyo argues that as long as
Washington offers no prior consultation, they do not carry nuclear
weapons. On 30 May 2002, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda
stated that because of changes in the international situation, Japan’s
non-nuclear principles might be altered. This statement sparked controversy;
overwhelming Japanese sentiment is still opposed to possessing
nuclear weapons. See also NUCLEAR ENERGY.