Overshadowed by the ongoing game of nuclear bluff and brinkmanship in east Asia, the United Nations is discussing a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons. Talks began in New York last month and will continue in June and July. Ireland's is among the six governments that proposed them, supported by more than 120 countries. The nations with nuclear weapons have stayed away, however, as has Japan, the only country to have been A-bombed.
Tokyo's disarmament ambassador, Nobushige Takamizawa, explained that his country would "continue to pursue realistic and effective" disarmament measures but, "regrettably", was unable to join the talks.
Japan has for decades paid lip service to the anti-nuclear cause while sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella, despite the fact that American bombs destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945.
The nation's so-called three non-nuclear principles, outlined by Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and formally adopted in 1971, commit Japan never to produce or possess nuclear weapons, nor to allow them into the country.
But they were not safe from the political calculations needed to maintain the facade of pacifism in a dangerous cold-war neighbourhood when Soviet Russia and then China acquired their own nuclear deterrents.
Japan's no-nuke rule was undermined by a back-room deal struck between Washington and Tokyo
Japan's no-nuke rule was undermined by a back-room deal struck between Washington and Tokyo, signed by Sato and President Richard Nixon in 1969. The deal allowed nuclear-armed US ships and aircraft to move through or over Japanese territory.
Politicians repeatedly denied the deal, even after the Japanese parliament officially adopted the principles, in 1971. Sato won the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize for his “opposition to any plans for a Japanese nuclear-weapons programme”.
Last year Washington finally admitted what had long been an open secret: nuclear weapons were stored in Okinawa, in Japan's far south, during the cold war, an arrangement long denied by officials from both sides.
As the cold war eased President George HW Bush almost halved the United States’ nuclear stockpile, withdrawing tactical weapons from ships and submarines across Asia. As president his son George W Bush cut the global stockpile even more aggressively.
China’s growing economic and military clout and, since 2006, North Korea’s membership of the select club of nuclear powers have helped convince US hawks that such moves were premature.
Barack Obama authorised a $1tn nuclear splurge that puts the world on track for a 21st-century arms race
The United States, under the Bushes' "liberal" successor Barack Obama, authorised "the largest expansion of funding on nuclear weapons since the fall of the Soviet Union", a $1 trillion splurge that puts the world on track for a 21st-century arms race.
Washington is also refusing to rule out a so-called first-strike option against China, according to Gregory Kulacki, a China specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a think tank. "[China] has been asking that for 10 years, and we won't give it to them."
The Pentagon's United States Strategic Command is working on a new evaluation to determine "whether the Russian and Chinese leadership could survive a nuclear strike and keep operating," the Bloomberg news agency said in January.
As the only country to experience first hand the use of nuclear weapons, Japan could have a considerable moral role in this new arms race. Partly for that reason Washington put pressure on Tokyo to sit out of the nuclear talks.
Its absence has infuriated Japan's hibakusha, or atomic-bomb survivors. Toshiki Fujimori, who lived through the destruction of Hiroshima, said he was heartbroken by the decision to stay away.
This duality is long standing. Historically, Kulacki says, there have been two sets of Japanese voices on US nuclear-weapons policy. One, reflecting most Japanese, “is strongly opposed to the use of US nuclear weapons in the defence of Japan.” The second, he says, “is a small and secretive group of bureaucrats in Japan’s defense and foreign-policy institutions who may have different views”.
Alarmed by China’s territorial claims to much of east Asia, and North Korea’s five nuclear tests, these bureaucrats are working to undermine the Bush legacy, he says.
The once taboo notion of tailored nuclear options has growing support on both sides of the Pacific
“They have made a sustained effort to have US tactical nuclear weapons redeployed in Asia.” In addition, he says, the once taboo notion of “tailored nuclear options” has growing support on both sides of the Pacific.
For tailored read usable.
“They believe that a credible threat to use nuclear weapons first or preemptively is necessary for maintaining the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent in Asia.”
That helps explain why every nation in southeast Asia has joined the UN disarmament talks, apart from Japan, South Korea and Australia. All are US allies.
