" Japan says it has no plans for nuclear weapons"

Japan says it has no plans for nuclear weapons

I guess Condoleeza Rice was told that Japan "has no plans to develop its own nuclear weapons..."

At the same time, it's already considered to be a de facto nuclear state by many of its neighbors.

Successive Japanese governments have achieved this status through a nuclear energy policy based upon the production and use of plutonium, and an ambitious if flawed commercial space program. It is this nuclear policy that will soon lead to the commissioning of the world’s most expensive nuclear facility - the Rokkasho-mura reprocessing plant. (Asia Times, The unthinkable: A nuclear-armed Japan)