By Suvendrini Kakuchi
TOKYO, Jun 1 1998 (IPS)

Japan should be wielding impressive clout as the world’s biggest aid donor and a non-nuclear weapons state, but so far it is unable to do much except shake its head over nuclear tensions heating up in South Asia.

“Nuclear testing in Pakistan and India has shown the Japanese government that it can’t do much to prevent the development of a nuclear arms race in Asia,” said professor Msayuki Tadokoro, an analyst at the National Defense Academy of Japan.

Like other world powers, Japan had urged India to refrain from new nuclear tests.

In a March letter to his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said: “I am carefully watching the trend of the nuclear policy of India which has a great influence on the peace and stability of the world.”

But, as the Japanese see it, the response from India has been a slap in the face. “They just did it,” Hashimoto commented to Japanese reporters after news of India’s testing.

Moving to pressure Pakistan to stay away from carrying out its own tests, Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi summoned the Pakistani ambassador to his office in recent weeks . But this was to no avail.

Pakistan’s decision to conduct six nuclear tests last week and over the weekend has left Japan, Asia’s economic leader, frightened, angry and frustrated, say top defense analysts here.

Some say the frustration is heightened by the fact that Japan should logically be playing a larger role in the nuclear debate. After all, unlike the other declared nuclear powers, Tokyo has no nuclear arsenal to protect and is well aware of the costs of a nuclear attack.

“Japan should take the lead. Unlike the United States or the other nuclear weapons states, Tokyo cannot be accused of merely trying to maintain its advantage,” argued Ralph Cossa of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum CSIS.

“As a committed non-nuclear weapons state with firsthand knowledge of the horrors of the nuclear arms, Japan’s leaderhsip credentials are impeccable,” argued Ralph Cossa of the Hawaii- based Pacific Forum CSIS.

He urges Japan to use its economic influence in South Asia to the hilt, in order to get other rich nations to do the same and in tandem with pressure from the rest of the world.

But thus far, its inability to do much to stop nuclear tensions from getting to this point in South Asia have triggered frustration readily seen in the Japanese media lately.

“While India’s tests came as a surprise, Pakistan’s were foreseen and took place despite carrot-and stick efforts by the Japanese and U.S. governments to dissuade Islamabad from going through with them,” commented Haruhito Kiyota, the foreign news editor of the ‘Asahi Shimbun’, on Friday.

“Events have taken the most dreaded course with Pakistan’s series of underground nuclear tests in response to earlier nuclear tests by India,” the paper added.

Nevertheless, Tokyo is taking action to show its displeasure over India’s and Pakistan’s nuclear steps.

On Friday, the Japanese government decided to ask the United Nations to help it take additional measures to control India and Pakistan’s potential nuclear arms build-up.

The government said it would propose a draft resolution asking all countries, including India and Pakistan, to refrain from conducting more tests through a legally binding resolution.

Japan, the only nation that bears the scars of nuclear bombing when the U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Pacific War, has played an active role in preventing a nuclear build-up in Asia.

For years Japanese premiers have made the issue of persuading arch rivals India and Pakistan to join the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) a major diplomatic priority during their visits to the subcontinent.

Tokyo, the biggest aid donor to India and Pakistan, has suspended new loans and grants to the two countries, a move that analysts predict is likely to hurt badly especially if they begin hiking spending on on defense and nuclear schemes.

The suspension of yen loans — some 935.3 million U.S. dollars a year to India and 230.2 million dollars to Pakistan — will also discourage Japanese investments in both countries.

Three years ago, Japan stopped grant aid to China after Beijing conducted an underground unclear test and resumed aid only after it joined the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

On Friday, the Lower House Foreign Affairs Committee decided to end approval of an investment protection treaty between Japan and Pakistan.

Japanese analysts worry that May’s nuclear tests will usher in a period of heightened tension in Asia. “The Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty has been badly damaged,” Tadokoro said in a press conference.

“The fact that India and Pakistan have demonstrated their nuclear arms capability against international opinion has illustrated there are no effective ways of deterrence in the subcontinent as well as in other countries,” he added.

Experts say the technology that India has displayed will allow it to continue nuclear arms development even after signing the CTBT. Pakistan, which is believed to have received Chinese aid for its nuclear programme, can also follow suit.

Pakistan has said India is preparing for fresh tests in July, but New Delhi says it is sticking to a testing moratorium and repeated calls for a no-first-use weapons accord with Islamabad.

Ryukichi Imai, Japan’s former ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, says one of the worst fears is that China, a declared nuclear power and a serious national threat according to India, may also resume testing.

However, other analysts say Beijing’s interests at this point lie in avoiding rejoining the nuclear testing club.

In any case, local security experts say a nuclear race among the three Asian nuclear powers would defeat the international community’s anti-nuclear efforts.

Satoshi Morimoto, a defense expert with the Nomura Research Institute, called for a more sophisticated NPT. At present, only NPT signatory nations are required to accept regular inspections, but he says it may be time for a more extensive inspection system to cover all countries.

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