Call to consider nuclear weapons
Japan’s former prime minister has called for debate about what was until recently taboo: That the only country to have suffered the ravages of atomic war should host nuclear weapons.
Shinzo Abe, 67, said that Japan should consider ‘‘nuclear sharing’’ of the kind by which Nato countries such as Germany, Italy and Turkey keep American nuclear weapons on their territory. He also said that the US should abandon its policy of ‘‘strategic ambiguity’’ and commit to defending Taiwan against any Chinese invasion.
With the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki never to be forgotten, anti-nuclear sentiment is strong and instinctive in Japan, and until recently the idea of hosting them, let alone acquiring an independent arsenal, was not contemplated or even discussed in political and policy circles.
However, the continuing threat of a nuclear-armed and unpredictable North Korea, which carried out another ballistic missile test at the weekend, and the growing aggression of China, are altering the strategic landscape; a shift given still more impetus by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
‘‘Japan is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and has its three non-nuclear principles, but it should not treat as a taboo discussions on the reality of how the world is kept safe,’’ Abe said. ‘‘It’s important to move toward that goal [denuclearisation], but when it comes to how to protect the lives of Japanese citizens and the nation, I think we should conduct discussions by taking various options fully into consideration.’’
Fumio Kishida, 64, the prime minister, responded by telling Parliament that nuclear sharing would be ‘‘unacceptable’’ given the ‘‘three non-nuclear principles’’ that have been at the core of Japanese security policy for half a decade: not producing nor possessing nuclear weapons, nor allowing them on Japanese soil. But the fact Abe, the most powerful faction leader in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has come out in favour of nuclear defence is a measure of the shift under way.
The American ‘‘nuclear umbrella’’ protected Japan during the Cold War. Under the treaties that the US has with Japan and South Korea, it guarantees their defence, extending the deterrent power of its nuclear arsenal across their territory, without stationing nuclear weapons there. But in the past two decades North Korea has acquired nuclear warheads, and the potential capacity to hit the US mainland. This creates a doubt in the minds of its Asian allies: would America still defend Tokyo if that meant possibly losing one of its own cities to a North Korean attack?
From a practical point of view, Japan has enough fissile plutonium, produced as waste from its civilian nuclear power stations, to manufacture thousands of warheads, and it has a mastery of rocket technology from its civilian space programme. Shigeru Ishiba, 65, a former defence minister, has said that Japan could create its own nuclear weapons ‘‘within a year’’.
The principle obstacles are legal and political. Japan’s military forces are barred under the country’s constitution from anything but defensive action. But the ‘‘Self-defence Forces’’ have become increasingly active, with laws passed to enable them to operate in support of allies outside Japanese territory.
Abe also called on the US to replace its policy of ‘‘strategic ambiguity’’ towards Taiwan. ‘‘[That means] it may or may not intervene militarily if Taiwan is attacked,’’ he said. ‘‘It is time to abandon this ambiguity strategy.’’