POLITICS-JAPAN: Discomfort Rises over Views on Nukes

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jun 27 2002 (IPS) - Japan’s Constitution binds it to peace, but the discomfort level of activists and neighbouring countries is rising amid recent remarks by top politicians that indicate the nation should have the right to possess nuclear weapons.

These concerns are focused on the country’s large stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium, a product of its nuclear energy programme, but which makes Japan capable of building thousands of nuclear weapons in the future.

Activist groups like Greenpeace have zeroed in on the possibility — which local analysts say remain far off – that Japan could one day use this plutonium to build nuclear weapons capability.

“Japan is a latent nuclear weapons country,” Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace campaigner and veteran researcher on Japan’s nuclear energy programme, said Tuesday.

The current attention on Japan’s views on going nuclear stems from statements by politicians like Ichiro Ozawa, who in April said, “If Japan wishes, it can produce thousands of nuclear warheads overnight to curb China. We will never be beaten in terms of military strength.”

Ozawa was with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party when he made the remarks, but is now leader of the opposition party.

Early this month, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said that with changes in the future political situation, Japan could choose to have nuclear weapons — although he said he was misquoted.

An aide, Shinzo Abe, was later quoted as saying it might be acceptable for Japan to have nuclear weapons “as long as they are small”.

The comments have been monitored elsewhere in Asia, a region that experienced Japan’s wartime aggression more than a half a century ago. China is keeping particularly close watch on comment from officials in Japan, its historical rival still sensitive to wounds of Japanese aggression.

“There is always suspicion that Japan can go nuclear,” said Hiromichi Umebayashi, a well-known anti-nuclear expert.

But apart from being about nuclear weapons, the remarks by Japanese officials underscore Japan’s security concerns in Asia’s changing environment – rivalry with China, calls at home to amend Japan’s Peace Constitution seeking a larger international role for the country, and the possibility of a scaling down of the U.S. security presence.

“That fear is heightened now as Japan loses its international clout, the end of the Cold War and the rising rivalry for status with China,” Umebayashi added.

Naoki Usui, a defense analyst, says comments like Ozawa’s reflect an increasingly jittery Japan especially after the end of the Cold War, which has shaken the American nuclear umbrella that made Japan’s security a vital U.S. interest.

“There is some frustration among top political and bureaucratic circles over the situation. There is definitely a growing push to boost Japan’s military status to expand its growing international clout,” he said.

Tang Zhongnan of China’s Institute of Japan Studies says assertions by Japanese politicians on the country’s possible nuclear capability is “not an isolated incident” and goes back to the early nineties along with calls for militarisation, according to the Singapore-based ‘Straits Times’.

“Nuclearisation is only part of the broader objective of full-scale militarisation, partially encouraged by the United States,” Tang was quoted as saying.

But activists say Japanese pacifist attitudes remain deeply rooted after having been the target of a U.S. nuclear attack in World War II. Keiko Hashimoto of the non-government group Peace Boat says that it is this sentiment of the public – fed up with Tokyo’s wartime aggression and keeping Hiroshima in mind — that keeps conservative politicians in check.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has sought to quell concerns by Japan’s neighbours, saying Japan would never repeat its militaristic past.

Experts like Umebayashi say that while Japan has the technology and the plutonium, a product of reprocessing spent fuel, to produce weapons, they do not think it is a real possibility now. “The hanging question is whether Japan will be able to change its Peace Constitution towards this purpose,” he added.

Japan’s Constitution says: “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” To achieve this aim, “Land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognised.”

But Greenpeace says Japan’s stockpile of high-quality plutonium and its sophisticated skills must be monitored, because it has the option to produce nuclear weapons in a period of a few months.

“Japan’s plutonium programme is spinning out of control. Unless it stops the programme completely, Japan is destined to have a massive stockpile of plutonium even if the material is used in nuclear reactors,” he said at a press conference Tuesday.

Under its nuclear power programme, Japan has accumulated 38 metric tonnes of plutonium as spent fuel, making it the top possessor among countries without a nuclear weapons programme.

Greenpeace estimates that Japan will have up to 145 metric tonnes by 2020 if the government pursues its plans to have, by 2010, 16 to 18 reactors loaded with plutonium in the form of plutonium-uranium mixed oxide material (MOX).

MOX fuel is a combination of 80 percent uranium and 15 percent plutonium, and enriched plutonium can be used for weapons. Japan is accumulating MOX fuel and wants to use it in its nuclear reactors, but this has been stalled by problems.

A stock of 145 metric tonnes of plutonium would be more than that in the entire U.S. weapons arsenal, according to Greenpeace. The United States, a declared nuclear weapons state, owns 100 metric tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium and Russia has 150 metric tonnes. Germany, a non-nuclear state like Japan, is said to have 30 metric tonnes.

Meantime, anti-nuclear activists are watching a controversial shipment of MOX fuel that will be sent from Japan to Britain soon — Kyodo news agency says the ship will sail on Jul. 4, and Greenpeace says the departure is set for between Jul. 1 and 4.

Japan’s second largest utility Kansai Electric is returning the shipment to British Nuclear Fuels, with which it has a contract for MOX fuel reprocessing, because the firm deliberately falsified vital quality control data during its manufacture.

Countries on the route of the voyage, that could pass the Malacca Straits or sail past the Panama Canal, have lodged protests against the shipment.

Resource-poor Japan defends its controversial MOX programme, the only one in the world, as important to gain energy self-sufficiency and to combat global warming.

But public opposition is growing. While heath and environmental risks are of grave concern, protests also centre on the issue of Japan’s right to possess and stockpile weapons-grade plutonium against a ban in the Constitution on possessing, producing, or allowing nuclear weapons into the country.