Spokesman Needed for the J-Bomb Campaign

After Nuclear Weapons Tests from North Korea in the past couple of years, Japanese policy makers and politicians have been discussing the issue of arming the country with defensive nuclear weapons, an impressive and interesting discussion to say the least. Japan has held onto its pacifist constitution for far too long and in a time of growing instability, the only way to curb that instability is for the stable and legitimate first world nations to hold the ultimate deterrent.

Earlier this year a former Finance Minister and senior politician, Shoichi Nakagawa suggested that Japan should explore the defensive nuclear issue in more depth to curtail growing instability over the possession of weapons by Kim Jung Il's regime. Since this time Nakagawa's LDP government has been defeated in a general election in August and Nakagawa (age 56) has since died at his apartment in Tokyo. Apparently he had been dealing with alcoholism his entire life.

"North Korea has taken a step toward a system whereby it can shoot without prior notice. We have to discuss countermeasures," said Mr Nakagawa from his office in April. The disgraced Nakagawa stepped down as Finance Minister after appearing to be intoxicated at a G7 press conference in Rome.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said that the Japanese constitution does not block the possession of defensive nuclear weapons. Abe went on further to reassure his U.S. and Chinese counterparts, back in 2006 that Japan would not exercise that option. His stance however, opens the debate regarding future Japanese Nuclear Weapons.

Now that the LDP government has been cast aside and Japanese voters have entrusted leadership to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the coalition government the question is; who is leading the fight in Japan on the Nuclear Issue?

The DPJ under Hatoyama have exposed a secret pact with the United States that permitted American Nuclear Weapons to enter Japanese ports, spanning back several decades. This has jeopardized the three Non-Nuclear principles of Japan, and has essentially exposed the Three principals to in fact be reduced to Two principles; namely that Japan will not make or possess Nuclear Weapons. The third compromised principle was that the Japanese government would not permit Weapons in Japan, or its territory.

During the recent election, the DPJ campaigned on a principle of attempting to eradicate Nuclear Weapons in North-East Asia. However while campaigning Hatoyama,　"emphasized the importance of the US nuclear umbrella for Japan to protect itself against North Korea," claims Tomoko Kiyota in an article titled Japan's Non-nuclear Principles: Change in the Offing? "However, as soon as he realized that his remark had been taken to mean that he intended to change the non-nuclear principles, he was quick to deny the previous remark and said, “the principles are/will be maintained in the near future,” continued Kiyota in the article.

To put it bluntly, there is no credible figure in Japanese Politics at the moment who can come out punching and make the case for Japanese Nuclear Proliferation. The case needs to be made, and strongly by a senior politician who values the defence of Japan. The Chinese and North Korean capabilities threaten the nation and as a global leader Japan should take a proactive approach in eliminating their long held principles of non-proliferation and acquire a stockpile of Weapons. The move will not destabilize the region, any more than it has already been destabilized by the acquisition of Hiroshima payload weapons currently held by the DPRK. The introduction of a Japanese nuclear weapons program should be done over the course of some time and should be done in parallel with a program to beef-up the Japanese Self Defence Forces.