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My Take | Could Japan and South Korea join the nuclear club? Cold war fears put the prospect in play
- Nearly eight decades have passed since the US bombing of Hiroshima and momentum for nuclear disarmament appears to be waning
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As Japan marked the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Tuesday, the country’s prime minister noted a major shift towards nuclear weapons.
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Amid the spectre of superpower confrontation, Fumio Kishida warned that for the first time since the height of the Cold War, the momentum towards a world without nuclear arms was on the verge of reversal.
Despite his pledge that Japan, “as the sole country to have experienced the use of nuclear weapons in war”, would continue to champion non-proliferation, Kishida admitted it had become “all the more challenging” due to conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and divided views over nuclear disarmament.
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Tensions have been soaring on the Korean peninsula, in the South and East China seas and across the Taiwan Strait, with the emergence of two opposing cold war-style camps: one led by Washington and the other by Beijing.
In a “seismic shift” in the regional security landscape, China, Russia and North Korea have inched closer to counter the US, prompting growing calls in Japan and South Korea for the two countries to acquire their own nuclear weapons to fend off a potential axis of nuclear-armed authoritarian regimes.
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