How Japan Established Relations with a New Country That Still Had Nuclear Weapons

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ “Ukraine: Basic Data” (dated September 3, 2026) sums up the start of Japan-Ukraine relations in three lines. State recognition: December 28, 1991. Establishment of diplomatic relations: January 26, 1992. Opening of the Japanese Embassy in Ukraine: January 1993. Opening of the Ukrainian Embassy in Tokyo: September 1994.

This sequence of dates is also covered in A Timeline of Japan and Ukraine. What this article wants to look at is what happened between those dates. What did Japan ask for at the moment of recognition? What happened before an embassy opened in Kyiv? Nuclear weapons left over from the Soviet Union remained on the territory of the newly independent Ukraine — how did Japan view that? This article follows these questions mainly through Diet records of the time and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Diplomatic Bluebook.

December 1991: Ten Countries Recognized, Russia Excepted

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Diplomatic Bluebook (1992 edition) explains Japan’s response to the collapse of the Soviet Union as follows. Japan needed to build new relationships with Russia and the 11 newly independent countries, including Ukraine. So in December, Japan recognized ten countries other than Russia (excluding Georgia) as independent states, and opened diplomatic relations with each of them in turn by September 1992.

Russia was not among the countries recognized because, according to the Diplomatic Bluebook, Japan treated Russia as “the same state, continuous with the Soviet Union.” Ukraine, by contrast, was recognized as a newly created country, not one succeeding the Soviet Union.

Recognition was not unconditional welcome. At the House of Councillors Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 27, 1992, government official Nagao Hyodo testified that, in recognizing each of the republics as a state, Japan had raised its concerns with each of them individually, including the need to faithfully carry out obligations on arms control and disarmament.

January 26, 1992: “Ukraine and Four Other Republics”

On the establishment of diplomatic relations, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said the following at the House of Representatives plenary session on January 28, 1992.

On January 26, we established diplomatic relations with Ukraine and four other republics. As for the remaining countries, we intend to establish relations one by one as conditions are met.

Answer by Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, House of Representatives plenary session, January 28, 1992 (National Diet Library, Minutes of the Diet Search System)

In the same answer, Prime Minister Miyazawa listed what Japan sought to secure from the former Soviet republics: pursuing reform, faithfully observing obligations under treaties and other international agreements, unified and strict control of nuclear weapons, and succession to the debts of the former Soviet Union. The next day, on the 29th, he again told the plenary session that, in developing new relations with the former Soviet republics, Japan was strongly urging them to carry out their obligation of unified, strict control of nuclear weapons.

The Four Countries Where Strategic Nuclear Weapons Were Stationed

Nuclear weapons were a particular focus of Japan’s attention. At the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 26, 1992, government official Hyodo explained that, as the Japanese government understood it, the republics where strategic nuclear weapons were deployed were four: the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. He went on to say that both Ukraine and Belarus had indicated, through their presidents personally, their intention to pursue non-nuclear policies, and that there had also been discussion of signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

At the same committee session, government official Hyodo also said that, as a result of these countries’ independence, nuclear weapons that had existed within the single territory of the Soviet Union had “happened to continue to exist there,” and that this was not a case of Russia’s nuclear weapons being newly deployed to, or proliferating into, the new states. Government official Minoru Tamba put forward the view that, since Belarus and Ukraine had made clear they would join the NPT as non-nuclear states, no violation of the NPT would arise at the time they joined.

Japan later went on to cooperate in the actual dismantling of the nuclear weapons. According to the documents appendix of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Diplomatic Bluebook (1995 edition), the “Agreement on Cooperation Concerning the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons Being Reduced in Ukraine and the Establishment of a Committee for This Cooperation” took effect on March 11, 1994. A similar agreement with Kazakhstan took effect the same day. A week earlier, on March 4, Foreign Minister Tsutomu Hata, in his foreign policy address to the House of Representatives plenary session, said Japan would continue cooperation on dismantling the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons and would also step up its efforts urging Ukraine toward denuclearization. Ukraine’s history with nuclear weapons after independence is covered in From the Transfer of Crimea to Giving Up Nuclear Weapons: Half a Century of Postwar Ukraine.

From a Planned Concurrent Posting to an Embassy a Year Later

Opening diplomatic relations did not mean a Japanese embassy immediately appeared in Kyiv. According to the report on the Committee on Foreign Affairs’ examination presented by House of Councillors member Yoshiko Otaka at the plenary session on March 27, 1992, the bill under deliberation would establish new embassies in 13 countries, including the three Baltic states and Ukraine, following the independence of the former Soviet republics, and rename the Embassy in the Soviet Union as the Embassy in Russia. The committee also questioned “the outlook for turning the new embassies, for now handled on a concurrent basis, into full-fledged missions,” and the bill was reported as one that should be passed unanimously. “Concurrent basis” means a form in which an embassy in another country also covers the country in question.

At the House of Councillors Committee on Foreign Affairs the day before, government official Hyodo, asked whether there were plans to set up a full embassy in Ukraine, answered that Ukraine was overwhelmingly important, even judged simply by population, and that Japan wanted to consider setting up a full mission there as a priority, alongside Kazakhstan in Central Asia among the former Soviet republics. The same day, government official Hyodo also explained that the United States had already opened an embassy in Ukraine, and that Britain, France, Germany, Canada and others were making arrangements to upgrade their consulates-general there to embassies.

The embassy in Kyiv actually opened in January 1993. In his foreign policy address on January 22, 1993, Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe said, “We have this time opened embassies in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, and a resident officer’s office in Belarus.” At the House of Councillors Committee on Finance on April 22, Yasushi Komachi of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs testified that the embassies in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, approved under the supplementary budget, had been opened at the end of January.

The newly opened embassy also faced a language issue. At the House of Councillors Committee on Foreign Affairs on March 29, 1993, government official Kazushige Nomura said that, for the newly opened missions in the former Soviet countries, staff trained in Kazakh or Uzbek had not been developed, and that in practice the missions’ work and contact with the host countries were conducted in the common language, Russian, adding that staff training would need to be considered over the long term. This answer concerned the former Soviet missions as a whole, and did not specifically address staff trained in Ukrainian.

Succeeding to Treaties, and the President’s Visit in 1995

Another issue was what to do about the treaties Japan had concluded with the Soviet Union. At the House of Representatives Committee on Audit on April 14, 1992, Ministry of Foreign Affairs official Takaya Suto testified that Japan and Russia agreed that all treaties with the Soviet Union remained in effect, but that with the other republics it was necessary to discuss the manner of succession of individual treaties with each country, and that, partly because the other side’s diplomatic apparatus was not yet in place, no conclusion had been reached. For Ukraine, confirmation of the succession of treaties concluded between Japan and the Soviet Union came in March 1995 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ “Ukraine: Basic Data”).

In the same month, March 1995, President Leonid Kuchma visited Japan. According to the Diplomatic Bluebook (1996 edition), Japan realized President Kuchma’s visit, and Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama expressed support for Ukraine’s economic reforms while the two sides issued a joint statement on the basic framework for their future relations. At the House of Councillors Committee on Foreign Affairs on April 25, government official Nomura explained that Ukraine was a geopolitically important country, a country where large quantities of nuclear weapons still remained, and a country facing the question of what to do about its Chornobyl-type nuclear reactors, and said that Japan had invited the President for an official visit and expressed its support.

Over a little more than three years after independence, Japan-Ukraine relations took shape piece by piece — recognition, diplomatic relations, an embassy, succession of treaties. Throughout that whole period, the nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory were one of the central concerns of the Japanese government.