China cites Biden’s message to Xi that Japan could build nuclear weapons ‘overnight’

Japan “may already have produced weapons-grade plutonium in secret” and “has the technological and economic capabilities to achieve nuclear armament in a short period of time”, according to an official Chinese report released on Thursday.

The report assessing Japan’s nuclear threat cited former US president Joe Biden’s direct message to Chinese President Xi Jinping that Japan had the capacity to have nuclear weapons “virtually overnight”.

Biden first disclosed the information in an interview with the American public broadcaster PBS in June 2016.

“What happens if Japan, who could tomorrow, could go nuclear tomorrow? They have the capacity to do it virtually overnight,” Biden said when recalling a conversation he had with Xi, but he did not say when it took place.