Tokyo Governor Ishihara repeats remarks in favor of Japan's nuclear armament

Riding on the "reviewing the Three Non-Nuclear Principles" argument, Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro repeated remarks in favor of Japan's nuclear armament.

Such remarks are incompatible with a governor who is in charge of the exhibition of the Lucky Dragon No. 5, a tuna fishing boat victimized by the first U.S. hydrogen bomb test explosion at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in 1954. Akahata of July 23 said:

Soon after Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo suggested the need for reviewing the Three Non-nuclear Principles on May 31, the Tokyo governor called Fukuda in encouragement and faxed his old magazine article to Fukuda.

In his article entitled "The myth of 'faith to non-nuclear' has disappeared" (October 1970 issue of monthly "Shokun"), Ishihara stressed the need to openly discuss whether Japan should have nuclear weapons or not."

He maintained in the article that suppressing the argument on the possibility of Japan's nuclear armament could lead to traitorous consequences. He went so far as to say that the most effective way with regard to Japan's nuclear armament may be "nuclear weapons carried by advanced nuclear-powered submarines."

As a result of the House of Councilors election in 1968, he became a lawmaker. And at his first press conference he declared, "I want to begin with the question of nuclear weapons in that Japanese people's antipathy to nuclear weapons needs to be removed."

In the nuclear era, he asserted, "a country must defend itself by the use or threat to use nuclear weapons of its own or of others." He has thus supported the U.S. policy of bringing in nuclear weapons into Japan (January 15, 1969, House of Councilors Budget Committee).

"Anyhow, some day in the future, Japan will have to find itself armed with nuclear weapons," he wrote for the monthly magazine "Bungei Shunju" December 1969 issue. Since then, he has often repeated that the Three Non-nuclear Principles must be reviewed.

After he became Tokyo governor, he advocated that for Japan to maintain the potentiality of possessing nuclear weapons will mean Japan gaining advantage in its international position (June 2002 Metropolitan Assembly).

However, the world current is completely opposite to what Ishihara argues. The 2000 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) review conference urged the nuclear possessing powers to definitely work to get nuclear arsenals withdrawn.

The governor's position of encouraging Japan's nuclear armament as effective measures to threaten foreign countries can never be compatible with the wishes of the people of Tokyo and all other prefectures who favor the elimination of nuclear weapons. He can hardly represent Japan's Capital to make friendly ties with the whole world. (end)