The Satō Eisaku Administration and Extended Nuclear Deterrence

Abstract

The Japanese government in the 1960s was concerned about the possibility of a nuclear attack from People's Republic of China (hereafter PRC or China) or from the Soviet Union. However, this alone does not explain why the Satō Eisaku administration considered China's nuclear weapon development program to be such a threat, as China was in an overwhelmingly inferior position in terms of its nuclear arsenal compared to the United States, and the PRC's nuclear weapons program was still in the early stages of development. This chapter argues that the Satō administration came to view China's nuclear weapons program as a threat because it feared a growing sense of awe toward China within Japan and looked with alarm at arguments that Japan should compromise with China. The first section discusses the period around China's first nuclear test (October 1964) and how the Japanese government was concerned about the impact of this test on Japan. The second section discusses the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' concern about the possibility that China and the Soviet Union would use nuclear threats to assist in their domestic spying and other infiltration operations within Japan.