Japan’s next security challenge: Who builds Asia’s nuclear reactors
SMRs become the latest tool in Japan’s security strategy
Contributing writer
Japan’s greatest strategic vulnerability may not be missiles or warships. It may be who builds Asia’s power plants.
As China expands its military reach across the Indo-Pacific, it is also quietly extending its influence through civil nuclear exports. Every reactor Beijing or Moscow builds creates a relationship that can last for generations, binding countries through fuel supplies, financing, maintenance, technical standards and political ties. In an era of intensifying great-power competition, exporting a nuclear power plant is less like selling infrastructure than securing long-term geopolitical influence.
That reality helps explain why the United States, Japan and South Korea recently signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to jointly export small modular reactors, or SMRs, across the Indo-Pacific. On its face, it is an energy agreement. In practice, it is a strategic response to China’s growing regional influence and an acknowledgment that Japan’s security depends not only on military alliances but also on who shapes the region’s critical infrastructure.
Statecraft
For years, China and Russia have understood something Western governments often overlooked: Civil nuclear power is an instrument of statecraft. Unlike a highway or a port, a nuclear power plant creates a relationship that lasts for decades. The country that supplies the reactor often provides the fuel, trains engineers, services equipment, helps manage spent fuel and finances future upgrades. Choosing a reactor is therefore also choosing a long-term technological, financial and diplomatic partner.
Beijing has used its vast domestic manufacturing base and indigenous reactor designs to expand overseas. Russia’s Rosatom has built one of the world’s most successful reactor export businesses, offering construction, financing and long-term operational support as a single package. Together, China and Russia have assembled a formidable pipeline of overseas projects, creating a nuclear ecosystem that deepens their influence across the developing world.
For Japan, the implications extend far beyond commercial competition. The Indo-Pacific is expected to account for much of the world’s future growth in electricity demand. Artificial intelligence, data centers and advanced manufacturing are driving unprecedented increases in power consumption, while many developing countries are simultaneously trying to reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing economic growth. The governments that help meet those energy needs will inevitably acquire political influence as well.
That is where the new trilateral agreement comes in. The partnership builds on the strategic foundation laid at the 2023 Camp David summit, where Washington, Tokyo and Seoul committed themselves to unprecedented cooperation. Since then, the three allies have expanded their collaboration well beyond traditional defense to include supply-chain resilience, economic security, advanced technologies and critical infrastructure. Nuclear energy is the latest — and perhaps one of the most consequential — areas of cooperation.
The agreement envisions much more than exporting reactors. It calls for coordinated financing, standardized reactor designs, industrial partnerships, workforce development and technical assistance for countries considering nuclear power. Washington has pledged additional funding through the State Department’s FIRST program to help Indo-Pacific governments develop the regulatory and technical capacity needed to deploy SMRs safely and securely. American, Japanese and South Korean companies are also expanding commercial partnerships intended to speed deployment.
The logic is straightforward. The United States remains a leader in advanced reactor design. Japan continues to manufacture many of the high-value components essential to nuclear power plants. South Korea has earned a global reputation for constructing reactors efficiently and competitively. Each country possesses strengths the others lack. Acting together allows them to compete more effectively against state-backed Chinese and Russian rivals than any could alone.
SMRs themselves are particularly attractive because they promise greater flexibility than conventional nuclear plants. Their smaller size makes them better suited for islands, industrial parks, remote regions and countries with relatively modest electrical grids. If the technology matures as expected, SMRs could dramatically expand access to carbon-free electricity while reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
But this is not simply a race to sell reactors. It is a competition over standards, supply chains and political relationships. Who supplies the fuel? Who trains the engineers? Whose safety regulations become the international norm? Which companies maintain the reactors over the next 60 years? These questions carry strategic consequences every bit as significant as the initial construction contract.
The partnership, however, begins with its own challenges.The United States continues to struggle with delays and cost overruns in domestic nuclear construction while rebuilding portions of its nuclear supply chain. Japan is still grappling with the political legacy of the Fukushima disaster and public skepticism toward nuclear power. South Korea hopes to expand its role throughout the nuclear fuel cycle, an ambition that has occasionally created friction with Washington.
Nor are SMRs without risks. Their widespread deployment will require robust systems for fuel supply, waste management, licensing, safeguards and international monitoring. Any effort to expand reactor exports must be matched by equally rigorous commitments to nuclear safety, security and nonproliferation. Otherwise, today’s strategic opportunity could become tomorrow’s security problem.
Cooperation
Yet the broader significance of the agreement lies elsewhere. For years, trilateral cooperation among the United States, Japan and South Korea produced ambitious summit communiques but relatively few lasting institutions. This agreement marks a shift from diplomatic declarations to practical cooperation. If successful, it could create an enduring framework linking governments, industry and finance that survives changes in political leadership in all three countries.
That institutional durability may prove to be its greatest achievement. We often think of great-power competition in terms of aircraft carriers, missile defenses and semiconductor factories. Increasingly, however, geopolitical influence is being built through electrical grids, supply chains and infrastructure that will shape national economies for generations.
For Japan, that realization carries particular urgency. Facing an increasingly assertive China, Tokyo cannot rely solely on military deterrence to preserve a favorable regional balance. Economic statecraft, technological leadership and trusted infrastructure partnerships have become essential components of national security.
The countries that build tomorrow’s reactors will do more than generate electricity. They will establish technical standards, shape supply chains, train future generations of engineers and forge political relationships that endure long after today’s governments have left office. The competition now unfolding across the Indo-Pacific is therefore about far more than energy. It is about who will help define the region’s strategic order for the rest of the century.