抄録
The history of the nuclear age of international politics is customarily divided into two phases with the establishment of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1971 as the epoch-makingevent. This paper argues that the really significant event was China’s decision to go nuclear in the latter half of the 1960s. In terms of the profound impact on the other Asian countries, China’s bomb was uniquely different from those of the preceding four nuclear powers, since it forced its neighbors either to arm themselves with their own bombs or to rely more on the nuclear umbrella provided by one of the existing nuclear powers. Japan elected to ensure that the United States was firmly committed to defending Japan against attacks from any nuclear power, including China, while chosing not to make or possess nuclear bombs of its own. China’s nuclear arsenal ushered in the second nuclear age also in the sense that it heralded similar attempts by economically less advanced nations in Asia and Africa. The cases of North Korea and Iran represent the most recent and ongoing examples of that kind.
