Japan’s nuclear policy in a changing East Asia with Professor Akiyama Nobumasa, Dr Lami Kim and Dr Daniel Salisbury

Robert Ward hosts Professor Akiyama Nobumasa, Professor of International Security at Hitotsubashi University and Director of the Japan Institute of International Affairs’ Center for Disarmament, Science and Technology; Dr Lami Kim, IISS Korea Chair in Advanced Technologies, National Security and Defence; and Dr Daniel Salisbury, Senior Fellow for Nuclear-Arms Control, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the IISS, to discuss Japan’s nuclear policy as the nuclear environment in East Asia shifts rapidly.

Together, they explore:

• China’s nuclear expansion and what the US–China strategic-stability agenda means for Japan.
• North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile programmes and the nuclear debate in South Korea.
• The Takaichi government’s approach to nuclear policy and the three non-nuclear principles.
• The credibility of US extended deterrence for Japan and South Korea.
• Japan’s role in non-proliferation and what the revisions to Japan’s security strategy may say on nuclear policy.

Recommended readings from our guests:

• Miyazaki Hayao, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol 6, (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten Publishing, 1993), 168pp.
• Akasaka Norio, Anne, Inaba Shinichiro, Oki Takeshi, Osawa Masachi, Owara Sumito, Kanō Seiji, Kawakami Hiromi, Koizumi Yu, Kono Shintaro, Sato Yusuke, Sugimoto Bauens Jessica, Suzuki Suzumi, Suzuki Toshio, Takemiya Keiko, Naganuma Takeshi, Fukuoka Shinichi and Miyazaki Tetsuya, Kiki no Jidai ni Yomitoku Kaze no Tani no Nausica [Reading in Times of Crisis: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind], (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co, 2023), 248pp.
• Sheila A Smith, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 304pp.
• Lami Kim, Everything But the Bomb: South Korea’s Nuclear Hedging Strategy, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, forthcoming 2027), 201pp.
• John Hersey, Hiroshima, (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 152pp.
• Nagai Takashi, The Bells of Nagasaki, (New York: Kodansha America Inc, 1984), 118pp.

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Date recorded: 30 September 2026

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