Nuke China

Japan's longest-serving prime minister -- a Nobel Peace laureate -- asked the U.S. in 1965 to deploy nuclear weapons against China if war broke out between the Asian rivals, according to newly declassified government files obtained by Kyodo news agency. During his first trip to Washington as the Japanese leader, Eisaku Sato told then-U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara that American military forces could launch a nuclear attack on China by sea if needed, Kyodo said Monday. Under its post-World War II constitution, Japan renounces war as a sovereign right and prohibits the use of force in international conflicts. But the new details of Sato's discussions with the U.S. reveal a more complicated picture behind his strong public stance against nuclear weapons as well as his intense distrust of China. His comments came a day after his talks with President Lyndon Johnson on Jan. 12, 1965, during which he sought to reconfirm a U.S. promise to defend Japan under the U.S.-Japan security treaty, according to Kyodo. The documents show that Johnson assured the Japanese leader of Washington's commitment to the pact. China triggered Japanese and U.S. concerns about the country's emergence as a nuclear power after Beijing tested its first atomic bomb on Oct. 16, 1964.