At the current point in world politics, I believe yes, Japan is set to become the next nuclear power. However, this would not be in anybody’s interest, to say the least. In dealing with the North Korean crisis, the United States needs to act swiftly, not merely to quell the DPRK’s further development and proliferation of nuclear weaponry, but to assuage Japan’s fears, and ensure that they stay within the confines of the NPT.
Because, quite frankly, this could be on of the worst times for the DPRK to conduct such a test. Japan has just elected as its Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a man who is highly nationalistic, conservative, and has in the past suggested amending the Constitution to allow Japan to raise an army. The first Prime Minister to be elected who was born after World War II, he has as much of a link to the war as a person my age does to the Viet Nam conflict. The stigma against nuclear weapons doesn’t strike him as truly as it would for a person who lived through the experience.
As it stands, Japan produces around 30% of its energy from 55 nuclear reactors, and has an amazing surplus of spent fuel. Japan has the technology, the monetary resources, and now, thanks to the DPRK, the motivation to gain nuclear weapons. A method of stabilizing the region, it could be called, while in fact revealing a newly emerged arms race.
There are those who could argue that allowing Japan to gain nuclear weapon technology would be nothing but a boon for the United States. We would have someone to do our dirty work in East Asia, a strong unwavering ally. They would be able to have true leverage against the DPRK, and possibly one day even China, on our behalf. This argument works in much the same way the argument for why the United States has yet to sanction either India or Pakistan for their development of nuclear weapons; for the time being, they are strategic partners within the region. To upset them means losing out on future endeavors in the region, plus the setting of two nuclear-capable states on the alert against us.
To that, I counter that there is no such thing as an unwavering ally. Sixty years is the blink of an eye, not just in geological terms, but historical terms as well. Looking to the past, one can see what amounts to an ebb and flow to Japan’s military buildup. The development of nuclear arms would merely spur Japan into being more overtly militaristic once more, with the world’s second largest economy and nuclear force to back it up. Also, there is the fact that China has still not forgiven Japan for previous wartime aggressions and are likely to be just as irate, if not more so, about Japan developing nuclear weapons as they are about the DPRK, possibly leading to conflict.
In dealing with the current situation, the United States needs to act quickly and decisively to ensure a dramatic decrease in tensions. At this point, it is not just a race to stop the DPRK, it is a race to calm Japan before nuclear deterrent becomes, in their eyes, the only option.