Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has raised the specter of nuclear weapons being used by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, calling the possibility “increasingly real” during a visit to Hiroshima with U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel.
The remarks by Kishida highlighted growing concern in Tokyo that Russia could potentially use smaller, tactical nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, dealing a huge setback for nonproliferation goals and providing a lesson to others who might be considering using force to change the status quo, including in Asia.
“As the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons is becoming increasingly real, I hope that Ambassador Emanuel's visit to the A-bombed city and his experience of seeing the nuclear reality will become a strong message to the international society,” Kishida said Saturday, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin's nuclear saber-rattling in his country's invasion of Ukraine.
Putin has warned of his country’s nuclear might and put his atomic forces on alert. And in an interview Friday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Russia's RIA news agency that there are several grounds under which Moscow has the right to use nuclear weapons, including an attack on the country or encroachment on infrastructure that would paralyze Russia's nuclear deterrent forces.
This has triggered fears that, if Putin feels cornered in Ukraine, where his forces have been dealt a number of setbacks, he might decide to break the nuclear taboo set more than seven decades ago after the United States dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The visit to Hiroshima on Saturday by Emanuel, a former top White House official known for having the ear of U.S. President Joe Biden, and his meeting with Kishida, who represents a constituency in the city, underscored the two allies’ unity in opposing any attempt by Putin to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
“Today, we live in unprecedented times as Russia threatens the use of nuclear weapons, something that was once unthinkable, even unspeakable,” Emanuel said. “The history of Hiroshima teaches us that it is unconscionable for any nation to make such a threat.”
In his talks with Emanuel, Kishida said the two had reaffirmed that Japan would continue to work with the U.S. in pursuing a world without nuclear weapons, though he admitted a difficult road lay ahead.
“The situation in Ukraine has once again brought home to us the difficulties we face on the road to a world free of nuclear weapons,” he said, encouraging more political leaders to visit the A-bombed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Kishida’s remarks echoed statements by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Ukrainian Ambassador to Japan Sergiy Korsunsky, who both said earlier this month that the use of nuclear weapons was now back within the realm of possibility.
The Russian nuclear threat comes as China looks to bolster its own arsenal and as North Korea continues to build ever more powerful weapons capable of delivering nuclear bombs to both Japanese and American cities.
In its annual report on the Chinese military last year, the Pentagon said Beijing is likely to possess at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 — a sharp rise from 2020’s projection of a total of 400.
North Korea, meanwhile, tested a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday that Japan’s Defense Ministry estimated could travel 15,000 kilometers, putting the entire U.S. East Coast in striking distance.
As of January last year, Russia had 6,255 nuclear warheads, followed by the United States with 5,550, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. China possessed 350 nuclear warheads and North Korea is believed to have 40 to 50.
Officials in Tokyo fear Beijing and Pyongyang could be emboldened by Moscow’s moves in Ukraine, taking a page from its attempts to use force or nuclear blackmail to achieve goals.
On Sunday, Kishida touched on that issue in an address to graduates of the National Defense Academy in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.
"We must never allow this kind of unilateral change to the status quo by force to happen in the Indo-Pacific, and especially in East Asia,” he said, adding that, depending on how the Ukraine situation unfolds, the world and Japan “could face the greatest crisis of the postwar era.”
Indeed, the Russian invasion has already prompted calls from conservative members of Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party, including from former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for Japan to discuss the controversial issue of nuclear weapons-sharing with the United States.
Kishida, however, told parliament late last month a U.S.-Japan nuclear-sharing deal would be “unacceptable given our country’s stance of maintaining the three nonnuclear principles,” referring to Japan’s 1967 commitment not to possess, produce or allow nuclear weapons on the country’s territory.
Despite Kishida’s stated opposition to the idea, the LDP has begun internal discussions on nuclear deterrence, taking up the topic of nuclear sharing, among other possibilities, as Kishida’s administration begins full-fledged discussions on a review of Japan’s long-term diplomacy and defense strategy, which is set to be completed by the year-end.
Under its alliance with Washington, Tokyo relies on the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” to deter threats, though the Japanese government has in the past said that its postwar pacifist Constitution allows it to possess nuclear weapons as long as they are kept to the minimum level necessary for self-defense.
Ultimately, when it comes to Russian nuclear saber-rattling, any attempt by Japan, the U.S. and others to help rein in such behavior and push for nuclear nonproliferation will be an uphill battle amid the current fraught security environment.
“I think it's easy to say something positive, but that may not be too realistic,” former Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Ichiro Fujisaki said this month of Japan’s role in the issue during an online discussion hosted by the German Marshall Foundation think tank.
Fujisaki said that, for the time being, nuclear weapons states are highly unlikely to part with their weapons or even discuss nonproliferation.
“After what Russia has done to its neighbor, it's very difficult to say ‘let’s everyone decrease nuclear weapons right now,’ when there's no trust ... among countries, including Russia,” he said.
Information from Jiji Press added
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