Symbolic imageNagasaki marks 81 years as Takaichi leaves non-nuclear pledge open
Nagasaki marked 81 years since the US atomic bombing on Sunday, its mayor calling nuclear weapons an "absolute evil". Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi again left Japan's three non-nuclear principles open.
Delegates from more than 90 countries fell silent at 11:02 a.m. on Sunday, 9 August, the minute a US B-29 dropped the plutonium bomb "Fat Man" on the city in 1945; 70,000 people were dead by the end of that year. Mayor Shiro Suzuki called the theory of nuclear deterrence "extremely dangerous and fragile" and told nuclear-armed states and countries sheltering under them that greater reliance raises the risk of nuclear war. He urged the government to uphold the war-renouncing Constitution and to attend this year's review conference of the nuclear weapons ban treaty.
The third principle
Takaichi repeated her "realistic and pragmatic approach" toward a world without nuclear weapons and said only that Japan currently maintains the policy, as she had at Hiroshima on 6 August. She backs the first two principles, not possessing and not developing; AP reports speculation that she could allow nuclear weapons to be brought in.
Build-up in the background
The ceremony fell as her government revises defence policy to expand offensive capability, with the 2026 white paper again naming China "the greatest strategic challenge". Global Times reports the budget could reach 10 trillion yen.
Other opinions
TASS highlighted the omission: Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Takaichi lacked the courage to name the United States, which Suzuki did. An SCMP commentary reads Tokyo's white paper as a dismantling of post-war pacifist guard rails.