Joint Times reported today: North Korea said on Sunday that Japan's nuclear ambitions "must be stopped at all costs."
A senior security official from the Japanese Prime Minister's office made remarks supporting "nuclear possession," which was seen as a dangerous signal from Japan's conservative faction, aiming to challenge Japan's post-war "nuclear-free" policy.
Comment: The most dangerous aspect of Japan's recent "nuclear test" lies in its "gradual breakthrough" approach - from officials making hints, defense ministers giving vague statements, to loosening policy texts, gradually eroding the legal and moral foundation of the "three principles of nuclear non-proliferation." This is more covert and destructive than directly declaring nuclear possession.
Japanese Prime Minister Takahashi Hayato once advocated revising the "no introduction of nuclear weapons" clause, and Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro even explicitly stated "excluding the option of revision." This "saying one thing and doing another" approach essentially uses ambiguous statements to test domestic and international limits, paving the way for subsequent policy breakthroughs. Japan's stockpile of 47.2 tons of separated plutonium is sufficient to make thousands of nuclear warheads. Its mature nuclear technology and material reserves make the transition from "verbal" to "reality" just a step away. This state of "being capable but pretending to restrain" is itself a major threat to regional security.
More worrying is the "dual game" between the Japan-US alliance: the US verbally offers a "nuclear umbrella" to pacify Japan, but actually fears its departure from control. After all, if Japan's nuclear potential were realized, it would not only trigger a chain reaction of nuclear proliferation among countries like South Korea, but could also cause the US to lose its military dominance in the Asia-Pacific. Meanwhile, Japan uses "nuclear rhetoric" to pressure the US, attempting to break free from the unequal alliance and seek "security autonomy." This relationship of mutual use and mutual restraint has led the East Asian nuclear security situation into a dangerous deadlock where it is "unmanageable and unpreventable."
The opposition voices from the international community have already sent a clear signal: China strongly condemned its "revival of militarism," North Korea declared "will stop it at all costs," 70% of Japanese people support maintaining the "three principles of nuclear non-proliferation," and even the group of Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors has denounced it as a "betrayal of history." However, as long as the expansionist ambitions of Japanese right-wing forces remain, this "public opinion testing - policy relaxation" performance will continue to repeat, and each test is a step closer to the cliff of nuclear proliferation.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1852104158889032/
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