Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, welcomed the Japan-US Nuclear deal announced at the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands on Monday, 24 March as "the first step in the right direction." Stating that China hopes for an early settlement of the supply-demand imbalance of nuclear material in China, he added that "Japan still stockpiles other sensitive nuclear materials, which far exceed its actual normal needs".

Under the deal, Japan and the United States will remove and dispose of all highly enriched uranium (HEU) and separated plutonium stored at the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)'s Fast Critical Assembly. The United States gave 331 kg of weapons-grade plutonium to Japan during the Cold War, Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported in late January. The United States has been pressing Japan to return the material since the first nuclear security summit in 2010.