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Japan Examines Nuclear Options
Everyone:
I found this story while perusing the raw news wires at work earlier tonight. Per my occasional custom, it's posted below for your reading pleasure. After you're finished reading, feel free to contribute to this thread as you see fit.
The part that piqued my interest was this: "Even journalists with dovish reputations said the option was a valid card to play for political leverage, not only against North Korea but the United States and other nations. ..."
If this attitude becomes ingrained, Japan would be wise to avoid any nuclear ambitions, no matter what North Korea does. Heh. Like that guy said at the end of the story, who would "shoot an unarmed man?" But if Japan gets nukes and couples the capability with the idea of political leverage over other nations ... well, Japan might find out that such leverage isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Nah. Better to be protected by America's nuclear umbrella — perhaps even its anti-missile system, whenever that gets up to snuff — than to go ahead with a nuclear weapons program.
I mean, c'mon, what are the odds someone's gonna pull a Poland on Japan?
Gatekeeper
I found this story while perusing the raw news wires at work earlier tonight. Per my occasional custom, it's posted below for your reading pleasure. After you're finished reading, feel free to contribute to this thread as you see fit.
North Korea threat makes Japanese think the unthinkable: Going nuclear
By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) — Just a few years ago, talk about possessing nuclear weapons would have been the pinnacle of taboo in Japan, the only nation to suffer atomic attacks.
But the nuclear ambitions of neighboring North Korea now have this nation thinking the unthinkable, even as it marks the anniversaries this week of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings — should Japan have its own atomic arsenal?
‘‘People are clearly waking up to the idea,’’ lawmaker Shingo Nishimura says of the new willingness to debate the issue. ‘‘They feel something is wrong with Japan.’’
Nishimura was forced to resign as a vice minister for defense back in 1999 just for suggesting Japan should consider going nuclear.
Now he’s a popular opposition lawmaker who gets to air his nuclear views on prime-time TV talk shows.
Yasuo Fukuda and Shintaro Abe, two prominent ruling party politicians and top advisers to the prime minister, are among other leaders who have broached the once-shunned issue within the last year, asserting that Japan has the right to bear nuclear arms.
‘‘Japan must start saying right now that it might go nuclear,’’ said Tadae Takubo, professor of policy at Kyorin University. ‘‘For a nation to entirely forsake nuclear weapons is like taking part in a boxing match and promising not to throw hooks.’’
No polls have been done that weigh public attitudes to going nuclear. But any such move would likely meet powerful resistance. Along with a strong anti-nuclear bloc in the ruling party, all major opposition parties are against it.
The raging firestorms, charred bodies and bulbous tumors are etched into the collective consciousness of generations. Japan’s post-World War II constitution renounces war.
Just this Wednesday, marking the Aug. 6 anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba reminded a crowd of the ‘‘blazing hell fire’’ that left 140,000 people dead or dying, and called all nuclear weapons ‘‘utterly evil, inhumane and illegal under international law.’’
At the same commemoration, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi affirmed Japan’s policy banning the production, possession and transport of nuclear weapons.
‘‘Our country’s stance on this will not change,’’ Koizumi said. ‘‘We will do our utmost to advance the call for smaller nuclear arsenals and nuclear nonproliferation while working toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons.’’
North Korean ambitions
All that could change, however, if North Korea ups its atomic ante.
Vice President **** Cheney speculated in March that Pyongyang’s ambitions could trigger a regional ‘‘arms race’’ and that ‘‘others, perhaps Japan, for example, may be forced to consider whether or not they want to readdress the nuclear question.’’
While a nuclear-armed Japan might deter a possible North Korean attack, it would likely worry China and could change the U.S.-Japan alliance, which for decades has centered on Japan’s reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
This month, The Shokun, a major right-leaning magazine, gathered essays from more than 40 prominent writers to debate the issue.
Even journalists with dovish reputations said the option was a valid card to play for political leverage, not only against North Korea but the United States and other nations. Some questioned whether Japan was ready for the responsibility; others preferred Japan to get a missile defense system.
Almost all were united in saying there is no harm in discussing a nuclear Japan.
‘‘If people had voiced such opinions a few years ago, they would have been branded weirdoes,’’ said Hideo Hosoi, editor in chief of The Shokun. ‘‘We’re starting to be able to talk about it in a rational and normal way.’’
Still, Japan’s postwar pacifist roots are well ingrained, and some even see its lack of nuclear weapons as its best defense.
‘‘All we can do is pray there’ll be no nuclear attack,’’ says Hiroyuki Ito, a cab driver. ‘‘But would anyone shoot an unarmed man?’’
By YURI KAGEYAMA
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) — Just a few years ago, talk about possessing nuclear weapons would have been the pinnacle of taboo in Japan, the only nation to suffer atomic attacks.
But the nuclear ambitions of neighboring North Korea now have this nation thinking the unthinkable, even as it marks the anniversaries this week of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings — should Japan have its own atomic arsenal?
‘‘People are clearly waking up to the idea,’’ lawmaker Shingo Nishimura says of the new willingness to debate the issue. ‘‘They feel something is wrong with Japan.’’
Nishimura was forced to resign as a vice minister for defense back in 1999 just for suggesting Japan should consider going nuclear.
Now he’s a popular opposition lawmaker who gets to air his nuclear views on prime-time TV talk shows.
Yasuo Fukuda and Shintaro Abe, two prominent ruling party politicians and top advisers to the prime minister, are among other leaders who have broached the once-shunned issue within the last year, asserting that Japan has the right to bear nuclear arms.
‘‘Japan must start saying right now that it might go nuclear,’’ said Tadae Takubo, professor of policy at Kyorin University. ‘‘For a nation to entirely forsake nuclear weapons is like taking part in a boxing match and promising not to throw hooks.’’
No polls have been done that weigh public attitudes to going nuclear. But any such move would likely meet powerful resistance. Along with a strong anti-nuclear bloc in the ruling party, all major opposition parties are against it.
The raging firestorms, charred bodies and bulbous tumors are etched into the collective consciousness of generations. Japan’s post-World War II constitution renounces war.
Just this Wednesday, marking the Aug. 6 anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba reminded a crowd of the ‘‘blazing hell fire’’ that left 140,000 people dead or dying, and called all nuclear weapons ‘‘utterly evil, inhumane and illegal under international law.’’
At the same commemoration, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi affirmed Japan’s policy banning the production, possession and transport of nuclear weapons.
‘‘Our country’s stance on this will not change,’’ Koizumi said. ‘‘We will do our utmost to advance the call for smaller nuclear arsenals and nuclear nonproliferation while working toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons.’’
North Korean ambitions
All that could change, however, if North Korea ups its atomic ante.
Vice President **** Cheney speculated in March that Pyongyang’s ambitions could trigger a regional ‘‘arms race’’ and that ‘‘others, perhaps Japan, for example, may be forced to consider whether or not they want to readdress the nuclear question.’’
While a nuclear-armed Japan might deter a possible North Korean attack, it would likely worry China and could change the U.S.-Japan alliance, which for decades has centered on Japan’s reliance on the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
This month, The Shokun, a major right-leaning magazine, gathered essays from more than 40 prominent writers to debate the issue.
Even journalists with dovish reputations said the option was a valid card to play for political leverage, not only against North Korea but the United States and other nations. Some questioned whether Japan was ready for the responsibility; others preferred Japan to get a missile defense system.
Almost all were united in saying there is no harm in discussing a nuclear Japan.
‘‘If people had voiced such opinions a few years ago, they would have been branded weirdoes,’’ said Hideo Hosoi, editor in chief of The Shokun. ‘‘We’re starting to be able to talk about it in a rational and normal way.’’
Still, Japan’s postwar pacifist roots are well ingrained, and some even see its lack of nuclear weapons as its best defense.
‘‘All we can do is pray there’ll be no nuclear attack,’’ says Hiroyuki Ito, a cab driver. ‘‘But would anyone shoot an unarmed man?’’
If this attitude becomes ingrained, Japan would be wise to avoid any nuclear ambitions, no matter what North Korea does. Heh. Like that guy said at the end of the story, who would "shoot an unarmed man?" But if Japan gets nukes and couples the capability with the idea of political leverage over other nations ... well, Japan might find out that such leverage isn't always what it's cracked up to be. Nah. Better to be protected by America's nuclear umbrella — perhaps even its anti-missile system, whenever that gets up to snuff — than to go ahead with a nuclear weapons program.
I mean, c'mon, what are the odds someone's gonna pull a Poland on Japan?
Gatekeeper
Smiley 
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