Nearly one-fifth of the members of Japan's lower house of parliament believe Japan should consider the option of possessing nuclear weapons if the international situation warrants it, a major newspaper reported yesterday.
Japan has no nuclear weapons, and possessing them would be a huge switch in long-standing policy in a country where even discussing the possession of nuclear weapons has long been taboo. Japan suffered the only atomic bomb attacks ever launched, with hundreds of thousands of people killed or injured in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 during World War II.
Based on a survey of the lawmakers' policies conducted just before Sunday's elections for the 480-seat lower house, the Mainichi newspaper said 83 lawmakers, or 17 percent of the body's new membership, support considering the nuclear option.
All but 20 of those voicing support were from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, it said.
The newspaper attributed the results to heightened concerns in this country over Iraq and the threat from North Korea, which may already possess nuclear weapons and has demonstrated the capability to fire missiles with a range long enough to reach most of Japan.
Throughout the postwar era, Japan has maintained a policy not to build, possess or allow the deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory.
That anti-nuclear sentiment remains very strong here, and Koizumi has stated he has no intention of deviating from it. He was not among the 83.
His party, however, has been carefully testing the waters.
Yasuo Fukuda and Shinzo 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.
Experts said the results were not unexpected.
"I don't think the percentage is worrisome," said Takashi Inoguchi, a professor of international relations at Tokyo University. "It is a normal response considering the situation surrounding the country."
Inoguchi added that the survey was phrased to include those who support considering the nuclear option, not just those who specifically believe Japan should in fact have the bomb.
"It just shows that there are an increasing number of people who think it is necessary to `consider' the issue," he said.
But survivors of the A-bomb attacks on Japan expressed disappointment.
"As more young people become lawmakers, fewer have experienced war, and they don't know the suffering nuclear weapons cause," said Nagasaki survivor Terumi Tanaka, who heads a survivors' support group.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion