TOKYO: Nagasaki on Sunday marked the 81st anniversary of the US atomic bombing of the Japanese city, with Mayor Shiro Suzuki warning against growing reliance on nuclear deterrence and urging the Japanese government to uphold the country’s three postwar non-nuclear principles.
The anniversary came as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government moves to further strengthen Japan’s defence capabilities, fuelling speculation over whether Tokyo could eventually ease its longstanding restrictions on the presence of nuclear weapons in the country.
Addressing the ceremony at the Peace Park, Suzuki described nuclear weapons as “absolute evil” and warned that reliance on nuclear deterrence could increase the risk of nuclear war rather than prevent it.
“The theory of nuclear deterrence is extremely dangerous and fragile,” Suzuki said, arguing that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had demonstrated the devastating consequences of crossing the nuclear threshold.
He urged leaders of nuclear-armed states and countries dependent on nuclear deterrence to confront what he described as the risks inherent in relying on nuclear weapons for security.
The United States dropped a plutonium atomic bomb, known as “Fat Man”, on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. About 70,000 people were killed by the end of that year, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, where around 140,000 people died. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II and its nearly five decades of aggression across Asia.
Representatives from more than 90 countries attended Sunday’s ceremony and observed a minute of silence at 11:02 am, the time the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
Suzuki also called on the Japanese government to uphold the country’s war-renouncing Constitution, attend the forthcoming review conference of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and maintain its three non-nuclear principles.
Takaichi, who attended the ceremony, reiterated her government’s stated objective of pursuing a world without nuclear weapons through what she described as a “realistic and pragmatic approach”. However, she did not clarify whether her government would maintain the three non-nuclear principles without qualification.
The Prime Minister also did not refer to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in her address. Japan has not signed the treaty, with Tokyo remaining under the protection of the US nuclear umbrella.
Speaking to reporters later, Takaichi said Japan would continue to work within the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. She added that the government would determine its approach to the nuclear weapons prohibition treaty based on what it considers most effective for national security and advancing nuclear disarmament.
The government’s position has drawn criticism from atomic bomb survivors, who have questioned the sincerity of its commitment to nuclear disarmament while supporting nuclear deterrence.
Survivors, known as hibakusha, have also protested amid concerns that Japan’s changing defence policy could weaken its longstanding non-nuclear stance.
The number of surviving atomic bomb victims has fallen to 91,105, around one-fourth of the original number, while their average age has risen above 86.
The declining number of survivors has intensified concerns that first-hand memories of the atomic bombings could gradually disappear, particularly as the youngest survivors were too young at the time to retain clear memories of the attacks.
