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 Despite enduring nuclear taboo in place, Japan is now on the road to manufacture public consent for nuclear weapons.

By Rakesh Neelakandan
A nuclear weapon is a status symbol until it is used

When the sovereignty and territorial sanctity of a nation faces threats, the basic instinct would be to get nationally nervous. Fight-or-flight choice is triggered. However, a nation is not like an individual and when the former gets nervous, it means it has got a single option on the table. To fight! And to fight, you need weapons—nuclear and conventional-- and a collective of systems in place. These facilities presuppose that public opinion is quite in favour of acquiring Weapons of Mass Destruction.

In any other country, nuclear weapons in the arsenal are deemed to be a status symbol; not Japan. Having been the victim of collateral destruction and damage, the Japanese psyche’s revulsion to nuclear weapons is the stuff of legends. However, despite enduring nuclear taboo in place Japan is now on the road to manufacture public consent for nuclear weapons. Attempts to revive nationalism in a deflated political economy should be seen in this light.

That Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is provocative is no secret. 

His controversial visit to Yasukuni Shrine in December last year kicked a hornet’s nest in Asia. He is also trying hard to keep up with an assertive and often aggressive China. Recall for example the case of East China Sea ADIZ proclamation by China and Japan’s reaction to it.

No wonder that the news of Japan secretly developing nuclear weapons cannot be treated as belonging completely to the realm of fiction as much as it cannot be considered as belonging to the section of facts. Truth is evasive.

Japan has a horrible past. One of the most aggressive countries of last century, Japan was pressed under the US nuclear boots which also led to the permanent footprint getting itself imprinted on Japanese ‘peace constitution’.

In fact, Japanese atomic policy rests on four pillars.

---Atomic Energy Basic Law of 1955 that limits Japan’s using of nuclear energy to the strict confines of peaceful purposes.

---The Three Non-Nuclear Principles wherein Japanese Diet or Parliament has pledged not to make, possess or even allow nuke weapons in its territory.

---Non Proliferation Treaty regime compliance and promotion by Japan.

---Japan’s reliance on US nuclear umbrella and security pact 

If reports are anything to go by, three of these pillars are under threat endangering the fourth one as well.

The first pillar faced the threat of dismantling when the Japanese Diet amended the 57 year old Atomic Energy Act wherein national security was included in the aims of the law, making it oxymoronic in character, despite assurances of contrary nature from highest echelons of Japanese political circles. 

The existence of second pillar had always been in doubt. After all, it is just a principle adopted by the Diet and has not been signed into law. The space to manoeuvre thus laid was a Japanese strategic decision to protect its scope and power to build nuclear weapons.

That Japan is capable of building nuclear weapons is no secret since 1994.The then Japanese PM Mr.Hata had made it abundantly clear: 'It is certainly the case that Japan has the capability to possess nuclear weapons, but has not made them.’

During those times, China was not in the nuclear calculus of Japan. Now, it has changed and perhaps changed forever.

There also exists the possibility that Japanese government may allow the US to bring in nuclear weapons on to its territory as recently iterated by Japan’s foreign minister Fumio Kishida, provided the national security of Japan is threatened.

While this gives out the impression that Japan would indeed allow US to bring in nuclear weapons, I believe that this was just a feeler sent by the political class in Japan to gauge public opinion. It should not be read as Japan warming up in the tight embrace of the US; far from it.