For the first time since 1974, the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to Japan; the award goes to an anti-nuclear weapons organization. But the country is slowly saying goodbye to its pacifist constitution.
It was already early evening in Japan when the news channels interrupted their programs for a breaking news story: This year’s Nobel Peace Prize went to the Asian country for the first time in five decades; the award was given to the anti-nuclear weapons organization “Nihon Hidankyo”. The group, founded in 1956 by survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, advocates for a world without nuclear weapons. It also supports the surviving victims of the bombings that reduced the two cities to rubble and killed tens of thousands in 1945. The last time a Japanese person was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was in 1974, former Prime Minister Sato Eisaku, in recognition of Japan’s accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
On the one hand, the award for “Nihon Hidankyo” is a reminder that “nuclear weapons must never be used again,” as the Nobel Committee said in its statement. The price can also be seen as a message to the Japanese government. The country is increasingly abandoning its pacifist constitution and is debating its own possible nuclear weapons more openly than it has been for a long time.
“The possession of atomic bombs is constitutional as long as they are small bombs”
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s former prime minister who was assassinated in 2022, has emerged as one of the most prominent advocates in recent years. Shortly before his death, when he was no longer in office, Abe once again spoke about a possible bomb for Japan in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Two decades earlier, Abe, already one of the country’s best-known politicians, had claimed: “The possession of atomic bombs is constitutional as long as they are small bombs.” However, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty prohibits the country from possessing its own nuclear weapons.
However, it is also a fact that Japan is not a member of the relatively new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which, among other things, prohibits the production and deployment of nuclear weapons. The fact that Japan has not ratified the document is “tantamount to supporting the United States’ nuclear arms buildup,” commented the liberal daily Mainichi Shimbun in August to mark the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. “Japan is the only country that has been attacked with nuclear weapons and is calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, but if it continues to behave in such a contradictory manner, it will betray the survivors of the bombings.” Many in Japan see it similarly: a 2021 poll demanded 75 percent of Japanese say their country should join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Japan is arming itself – because of China and North Korea
Meanwhile, Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is openly thinking about an “Asian NATO“after, as a counterweight to a growing China and the dictator’s nuclear-armed North Korea Kim Jong-un. Closer cooperation with the USA on nuclear issues is also being discussed in Japanese security circles, along the lines of the Nuclear Consultative Group that Washington set up with the South Korean government last year.
Japan is massively arming itself, especially conventionally. Ishiba’s predecessor At the end of 2022, Fumio Kishida announced the goal of doubling Japan’s defense budget to two percent of gross domestic product. The island state would then have the third largest military budget in the world – behind the USA and China. The role of the Japanese army, the so-called self-defense force, has also been hotly debated for years. Their powers have been increasingly expanded in recent decades. Some people in Japan fear that the country could betray its post-war constitution. Article nine states: “The people of Japan forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force.”
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