Japan's Nuclear Ambitions Awaken: A seemingly minuscule change in its law may have big implications

[bananas]

http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4640&Itemid=176

Japan's Nuclear Ambitions Awaken
Written by Lee Byong-Chul
Thursday, 28 June 2012

A seemingly minuscule change in its law may have big implications

It would be wrong to say Japan’s experience as the first victim of nuclear weapons in 1945, the year when the United States became the world’s first nuclear power, is a permanent deterrent to its own ambitions for nuclear weapons. It would be also a mistake to assume that the country’s nuclear trauma in the 67-year wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, especially since the 2011 Fukushima era, has snuffed the government’s interest in weaponization.

It is thus disappointing but not surprising that Japan recently altered its basic law on atomic energy to include “national security” among its goals for nuclear power. An Upper House session was quick to revise the main principles of the basic law on nuclear power for the first time in 34 years so as to avoid the neighbors’ watchful gaze. That adds fuel to the fire that the new wording could be a stepping stone to legally permitting the development of atomic weapons in the not-to-distant future. It is hardly the first time that Japan has fumbled the nuclear issue with its neighbors, although Japanese officials in the past have always immediately moved to squash such allegations.

Environment Minister Goshi Hosono told the Diet on June 13 that “security means nonproliferation.” Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura reiterated the government's stance on the following day, apparently in consideration of the growing concerns from the neighboring countries, assuring that “our principles over the peaceful use of nuclear power will be firmly observed.” These allegations are the equivalent of arguing that fishhooks do cause the catching of fish, since this can also involve rods, reels and anglers.

In any case, the Japanese nuclear program is not so much driven by ideology as by a mixture of fear and ambition. In effect, that is what Japanese leaders on the right wing are already doing, and will continue doing so long as the following troubles are not fundamentally resolved.

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[kristopher]

1. Good OpEd from Japanese press

Business-as-usual alteration of nuclear law unsettling

The long dominant and now largest opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) insists that an amendment to the Atomic Energy Basic Act is not a ploy to pave the way toward Japan's acquisition of nuclear arms. Moreover, the House of Representatives Legislation Bureau says the steps taken to institute the legal amendment have not violated any bylaws or regulations.

But there's something unsettling about the whole thing. First, there's the question of what a "basic act" is supposed to be. One can't help but feel that a foundational legal framework for atomic energy policy is being altered as if it were a routine process.

As mentioned in last week's installment of this column, Article 2 of the Atomic Energy Basic Law stipulates that research into and use of atomic power are restricted to peaceful purposes, championing democratic, independent and public disclosure principles. In the latest amendment, the clause that Japan's atomic energy policy should contribute to national security -- with the wording as it was originally suggested by the LDP -- was added. Suspicions have subsequently emerged that the revision is either an attempt to tie the conservative ideology of self sufficiency and self defense to nuclear arms development, or to allow for the continued operation and possible military use of the Rokkasho Nuclear Reprocessing Plant.

The national security clause was included as an appendix to a bill for the establishment of a new nuclear regulatory body in late June, and initially went unnoticed even by newspaper reporters.

Soon after the bill's passage...

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20120702p2a00m0na005000c.html

[FBaggins]

2. Wow... who knew that "national security" was code for "nuclear weapons"?

I guess the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is part of our nuclear weapons program as well?

I point out that feed-in tariffs (and other incentives) for solar/wind are also justified (correctly) by national security concerns here and around the world.