• by Thalif Deen (united nations)
• Friday, January 23, 2026
• Inter Press Service

• On the 80th anniversary, which was commemorated in August 2025, Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said: “We remember those who perished. We stand with the families who carry their memory,” as she delivered the UN Secretary-General's message.

  She paid tribute to the hibakusha – the term for those who survived Hiroshima and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki – “whose voices have become a moral force for peace. While their numbers grow smaller each year, their testimony — and their eternal message of peace — will never leave us,” she said.

UNITED NATIONS, January 23 (IPS) - The two current ongoing conflicts, which have claimed the lives of hundreds and thousands of people, are between nuclear and non-nuclear states: Russia vs Ukraine and Israel vs Palestine, while some of the potential nuclear vs non-nuclear conflicts include China vs Taiwan, North Korea vs South Korea and US vs Iran (Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba and Denmark).

The growing list now includes another potential conflict: nuclear China vs non-nuclear Japan, the world’s only country devastated by US atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 which killed over 150,00 to 246,000, mostly civilians.

A statement last month by Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned that her country could intervene militarily if China were to attack Taiwan—a statement that has the potential for a new conflict in Asia.

According to the New York Times, Beijing has “responded furiously” asserting that self-governing Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory. The government has also urged millions of tourists to avoid Japan, has restricted seafood imports and increased military patrols.

Meanwhile, amidst rising military tension, the Japanese government has called for a snap general election on February 8, to seek a fresh public mandate for the new administration.

In an article titled “An Anxious Nation Restarts One of its Biggest Nuclear Plants”, the Times said January 22 that “Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO)—the same utility that operated the Fukushima plant—has restarted the first reactor, Unit 6, at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex, one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities”.

Before 2011, nuclear power provided about 30 percent of Japan’s electricity, the Times pointed out.

According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, Japan’s military budget in 2024 had grown to the 10th largest in the world. China’s military budget has also been growing, in 2024 being second only to that of the United States.

Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, California, and North American Coordinator for “Mayors for Peace”, told IPS Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent statement that an armed attack on Taiwan by China could constitute an “existential threat” to Japan, is very worrying indeed.

In 1967, she said, Japan’s then-Prime Minister Eisaku introduced the Three Non-Nuclear Principles of not possessing, not producing, and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons, and they were adopted by a formal resolution of the Diet in 1971.

“However, Japan’s commitment to these Principles has been called into question over the years, and it is widely believed that Japan has the capability to rapidly produce nuclear weapons, should the decision be made to do so.”

Beijing is ratcheting up the rhetorical heat. Whether true or not, a recent report by the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association and the Nuclear Strategic Planning Research Institute, a think tank affiliated with the China National Nuclear Corporation, alleges that Japan is engaged in a secret nuclear weapons program, and poses a serious threat to world peace. Meanwhile, China is rapidly modernizing and increasing the size of its own nuclear arsenal, said Cabasso.

“Japan, as the only country in the world to have experienced the use of nuclear weapons in war, has the unique moral standing to be a champion for dialogue and diplomacy, peace, and nuclear disarmament”.

Japan and China’s leadership – and for that matter, all world leaders – should listen to the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who on January 20 issued a Joint Appeal on behalf of the 8,560 members of Mayors for Peace in 166 countries and territories, declaring, “We urge all policymakers to make every possible diplomatic effort to pursue the peaceful resolution of conflicts through dialogue and to take concrete steps toward the realization of a peaceful world free from nuclear weapons.”

Dr M.V. Ramana, Professor and Simons Chair in Disarmament, Global and Human Security and Director pro tem, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, told IPS even without nuclear weapons being utilized, the use of military force in Taiwan would be disastrous for global security, and especially for the people of Taiwan.

“Any resolution of the dispute over Taiwan should follow two fundamental principles: it should be settled through dialogue and discussion, and it should prioritize the wishes of the inhabitants of Taiwan. Finally, all parties should avoid provocative remarks,” he declared.

The new developing story also figured at a recent UN press briefing.

Question: We know that there is a long-standing policy of Japan, which called three non-nuclear principles, which basically said that Japan shall neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons nor shall it permit their introduction into Japanese territory. But currently, the Japanese Government is under a discussion of revision of some of those security documents, including this policy, which draws quite anger from people from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and some of the Nobel Peace Prize winners. What’s the position of the UN .…?

UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric: Look, I think the Secretary-General’s position on denuclearization, has been clear and he stated it a number of times. Obviously, Member States will set whatever policy they wish to set. What is important for us is that the current tensions between the People’s Republic of China and Japan be dealt through dialogue so as to lower the tensions that we’re currently seeing… I think the Secretary-General’s position on denuclearization and non-proliferation is well known and has been unchanged.

At a party leaders’ debate last November, Tetsuo Saito, representative of New Komei Party, which was founded in 1964 by Dr Daisaku Ikeda, leader of Japan’s Soka Gakkai Buddhist movement, questioned Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Diet about the government’s stance on the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and Japan’s security policy.

He criticized remarks by a senior government official suggesting Japan should possess nuclear weapons, calling them contrary to Japan’s post-war policy and damaging to diplomatic and security efforts.

He emphasized that the principles—not to possess, not to produce, and not to permit nuclear weapons on Japanese soil—and Japan’s obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are fundamental and must remain unassailable.

• Saito stated that the Takaichi administration’s position leaves room for ambiguity, especially when Takaichi’s replies were perceived as non-committal about maintaining the principles.
• He expressed concern that this ambiguity could open the door to future revision and said Komeito will continue to press the government to uphold the principles without qualification in future Diet sessions.
• In December 2025, Saito reiterated in public remarks that the Three Non-Nuclear Principles and Japan’s policy against nuclear weapons should be preserved.
• He has urged the government to reaffirm this commitment clearly to both domestic and international audiences and to listen to hibakusha (atomic-bomb survivors) and civil society voices advocating nuclear abolition.

Elaborating further, Cabasso said given Japan’s brutal invasion of China during World War II and China’s growing threats to reclaim Taiwan, dangerous long-simmering tensions between the two countries have reemerged. In an increasingly unstable and unpredictable geopolitical world, Japan and China’s war of words is a train wreck waiting to happen.

Article 9 of Japan’s 1947 Peace Constitution, imposed on Japan by the United States in an act of victor’s justice, states, “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right and the threat of use of force as means of settling disputes,” and armed forces “will never be maintained.”

However, these provisions have been eroding in the 21st century, with Japan in 2004 sending its Self-Defense Forces out of area – to Iraq – for the first time since World War II. And in 2014, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reinterpreted Article 9, allowing Japan to engage in military action if one of its allies were to be attacked.

The following year, she pointed out, the Japanese Diet enacted a series of laws allowing the Self-Defense Forces to provide material support to allies engaged in combat internationally in an “existential crisis situation” for Japan. The justification was that failing to defend or support an ally would weaken alliances and endanger Japan.

References

Japan Secretly Building Nukes, Could Go Nuclear Overnight Under Takaichi’s Policy Shift, Chinese Report Claims
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/japan-secretly-building-nukes-could-go-nuclear/

Mayors for Peace Joint Appeal, January 20, 2026
https://www.mayorsforpeace.org/en/

This article is brought to you by IPS NORAM, in collaboration with INPS Japan and Soka Gakkai International, in consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

IPS UN Bureau Report

© Inter Press Service (20260123060816) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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