A nuclear Japan would send chills throughout China.
Relations between Japan and China are a problem for them to work out.
With more nationalist government it is going to send chills through the US as well.
LOL, if anyone thinks Japan has not gone nuclear, they don’t understand the Japanese mindest very well. Oh, I am sure that Japan doesn’t have any actual nuclear weapons on hand... but I am sure they have stockpiled all the components, carefully kept separate, and have run all the supercomputer simulations they need to make sure that, if they ever needed to be snapped together, they would definitely work.
Delivery systems? Japan’s Epsilon rocket is ICBM in everything but name — logically so because it is basically a demilitarized version of the MX Peacekeeper missile — built in the same tech, anyhow.
The author here cites Ukraine, but I think Afghanistan is more unpleasant from the Japanese standpoint. The way Biden unassed the country, leaving billions in hardware and thousands of US citizens in the lurch must have been a total leemer to Tokyo defense planners.
Ever since Obama, the Japanese have been wrapping their minds around the idea that the US is not a credible defense partner anymore and have been quietly preparing for the time when they would have to go it alone. All Afghanistan and Ukraine are doing is making it clear that they will need to be ready sooner rather than later.
I’d be willing to bet dollars to donuts that Japan either already has nukes or has everything needed to assemble nukes at the ready. And I don’t think it would take S.K. very long to put together a nuke either. Both are first world nations with highly competent scientists.