Japan's dangerous obsession

If a country claims that it sticks by non-nuclear principles but at same time hoards far more nuclear materials than it needs, including a massive amount of weapons-grade plutonium, the world has good reason to ask why, says a Xinhua commentary.

Outlined by Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in a speech to the House of Representatives in 1967, the three non-nuclear principles, an important part of Japan's peaceful post-war development, state that Japan will not produce, possess or allow the entry into its territory of nuclear weapons.

However, since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took office a year ago, Japan's right-wing conservatives have often been heard clamoring for nuclear weapons.