https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-08/china-says-it-hopes-abe-is-out-of-danger-and-recovers-soon
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/shinzo-abe-campaign-shooting-chinese-celebrate-assassination-bid-call-attacker-a-hero/articleshow/92742834.cms
Shinzo Abe death: Chinese 'celebrate' shooting, call attacker a 'hero
https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/china/shinzo-abe-attacked-china-mouthpiece-takes-dig-at-abenomics-predicts-nato-expansion-articleshow.html
Shinzo Abe Assassinated: China Mouthpiece Takes Dig At Abenomics; Predicts NATO Expansion
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/shinzo-abe-critical-after-being-shot-attacker-held-top-developments/articleshow/92744720.cms
Explosives found in home of suspect in Shinzo Abe shooting case: Top developments
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-nuclear-debate-in-japan-shinzo-abe-nato-us-russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-china-xi-jinping-11646147202
https://archive.ph/sGdbZ
A New Nuclear Debate in Japan
Ukraine invasion fallout: Shinzo Abe suggests nuclear weapons sharing with the U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-new-nuclear-debate-in-japan-shinzo-abe-nato-us-russia-ukraine-vladimir-putin-china-xi-jinping-11646147202
https://archive.ph/sGdbZ
A New Nuclear Debate in Japan
Ukraine invasion fallout: Shinzo Abe suggests nuclear weapons sharing with the U.S.
Whatever else Chinese President Xi Jinping thought he’d accomplish through his entente with Vladimir Putin, a nuclear Japan surely wasn’t on the list. Yet the global disorder the pair are stoking may prompt a security rethink in Tokyo, as former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe demonstrated this weekend.
Mr. Abe on Sunday suggested Japan should consider a nuclear-sharing arrangement with the U.S. similar to NATO. Various European countries allow the U.S. to house American nuclear weapons on their soil as part of NATO’s deterrence. Japan shelters under America’s nuclear umbrella but has insisted the weapons be placed elsewhere.
The prospect of placing American nuclear weapons in Japan remains in the future, if it happens. Political opposition in Tokyo is entrenched, and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida dismissed Mr. Abe’s idea.
The diplomatic and practical constraints are significant, too. Nuclear sharing in NATO comes with a requirement that America’s allies maintain equipment such as aircraft capable of delivering the B-61 bombs. NATO also features a working group to coordinate nuclear strategy within the alliance. For sharing to work in Asia, the U.S. and allies would need to develop a broader and deeper political and military alliance than currently exists. It’s a worthy goal, but not a quick one.
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This is not an entirely new discussion in Japan, and President Trump floated the idea of a nuclear-armed Japan and South Korea starting with his 2016 campaign. But Mr. Abe is the most senior Japanese politician to raise the issue to date. He’s also making a bigger point: “It is necessary to understand how the world’s security is maintained. We should not put a taboo on discussions about the reality we face.”
Mr. Abe is right that Japan can’t answer strategic questions its leaders aren’t willing to ask, and that Japan can no longer afford to leave options off the table. The backdrop is Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which accentuates Japan’s growing concern about the prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as Beijing amps up its nationalist rhetoric and appears to make common cause with the Kremlin.
Tokyo understands the security stakes for Japan if and when the new global disorder reaches Asia. Tokyo late last year increased defense spending with a goal of eventually reaching 2% of GDP for defense each year from less than 1%. Mr. Abe’s remarks reflect a growing belief that more spending alone may not be enough to buy security if Japan shirks a harder debate about the capabilities it needs.
Germany, which like Japan adopted a pacifist stance after World War II, has undergone a similar conversion this week and is further along turning talk into policy. Chalk up Mr. Abe’s comments as another unintended consequence of the new march of the autocrats.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Abe-reiterates-nuclear-sharing-discussion-is-necessary
Abe reiterates nuclear-sharing discussion is necessary
TOKYO -- Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that it is "only natural" for the country to discuss the possibility of nuclear sharing with the U.S.
Speaking at a gathering of the Abe faction, the largest faction in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the former leader repeated his statements on Fuji TV on Sunday, which triggered a wide debate in Japan's political world.
As part of NATO's policy on nuclear sharing, American nuclear weapons are currently deployed in five countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
"We need to think why the former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe yearned to be part of NATO, and indeed entered NATO after independence," Abe said. "By joining fellow members who exercise collective self-defense, they were going to protect themselves. This included being protected from the threat of nuclear weapons under nuclear sharing."
"If Ukraine had managed to enter, it would likely not have led to the current situation," he added.
While noting that the "three nonnuclear principles" of not possessing, manufacturing or permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons onto Japanese territory are basic policy in the country, he said, "It is only natural to discuss how to protect the independence of our people and Japan in this reality that we live in."
He also said that discussing such issues at the government level is "entirely different" from just talking about it within the LDP, and encouraged serious debate that matches the reality surrounding Japan. "The issue is what happens when we have a neighbor that has no qualms about using armed force."
Meanwhile, the opposition Japan Innovation Party (Nippon Ishin no Kai) also called for a discussion on nuclear sharing in a policy proposal it submitted to Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Thursday.
Japan should "not be bound by traditional frameworks, and increase the defense budget," it said, making 2% of gross domestic product a goal for the foreseeable future.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday rejected the idea, calling it "unacceptable" given the three nonnuclear principles.
Natsuo Yamaguchi, the leader of the LDP's coalition partner, Komeito, has also expressed reservation for the idea. "As prime minister and still today, Mr. Abe has always held that the three nonnuclear principles should be maintained. He should stick to that position," Yamaguchi said earlier this week.
Japan is surrounded by nuclear nations, including China, which has 200 warheads, and North Korea, which is thought to have 20 to 30. The Pentagon predicts that China's warheads will increase fivefold to at least 1,000 by 2030.
Will Ukraine invasion push Japan to go nuclear?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60857346
How could Japan ever contemplate getting nukes? It's a ridiculous idea. Japan is the only country in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack. Twice. Japan acquiring nuclear weapons is unthinkable. The people would never accept it. Right?
Right.
Or so the story has gone for the last 77 years.
But in the last few weeks one Japanese politician has started suggesting otherwise. He is Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest serving post-war prime minister. Mr Abe has begun saying loudly and publicly that Japan should, indeed, think seriously and urgently about nuclear weapons.
What we are talking about here is a fundamental break with Japan's post-war commitment to pacifism - something enshrined in its post-war constitution.
But it's no coincidence this call-to-arms has come just as Russia has invaded Ukraine.
For those, like Mr Abe, who have long yearned for a fully re-armed Japan, the invasion of Ukraine serves as a useful example of what can happen to countries that don't defend themselves properly against bigger, better armed and more aggressive neighbours.
Richard McGregor of the Lowy Institute in Sydney and author of Asia's Reckoning believes Abe thinks the time is right to push genuine debate in Japan and get on to the serious work of really trying to persuade the Japanese public.
Women survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs
"I think that's the holy grail here. I think he wants to try and move public opinion, which has been frankly pretty stubborn," he told the BBC.
Pretty stubborn is an understatement. A survey conducted last year found 75% of Japanese want the country to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Mr Abe's call for a nuclear debate was met with outrage from atom bomb survivors' groups in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (who is from Hiroshima) was quick to slap down his predecessor, calling Mr Abe's suggestion "unacceptable".
But Mr Abe is an astute politician. He knows Ukraine has come as a huge shock, and he knows the Japanese public is worried about an unpredictable nuclear-armed North Korea and an increasingly aggressive China.
Professor Yoichi Shimada is a conservative academic and long-time friend and advisor to Shinzo Abe.
"He thinks it's imperative for Japan to have some kind of independent attacking power against China or North Korea," Professor Shimada says.
"And that includes possibly a nuclear arsenal. But he also knows it would be suicidal for any politician to advocate for Japan to have nuclear weapons, so he wants to activate the debate.
"The official position of the Japanese government now is to rely on US extended (nuclear) deterrents. But Japan doesn't allow the United States to deploy nuclear weapons in Japan. That, frankly, is selfish."
And so, Mr Abe is not suggesting Japan build its own nuclear weapons. He's suggesting it borrow some from America.
Reality Check: Where are the world's nuclear weapons?
Largely forgotten in the post-cold war world is the fact is that Germany, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands all store US nuclear weapons on their soil.
More than that, if there were a nuclear war, these non-nuclear weapons states could "deliver" those weapons to targets on behalf of the US, using their own aircraft.
This is what Mr Abe is now proposing for Japan.
It all still feels very far-fetched. Japanese law has explicitly banned any nuclear weapons from its soil since 1971. But Mr Abe is not alone in calling for that ban to now be debated.
Ryozo Kato was Japan's longest serving post-war ambassador to the United States and is perhaps the most ardent advocate of the Japan-US alliance. But he says with a nuclear-armed North Korea, Japan can no longer just to rely on the US nuclear umbrella.
"It may not be China," he says.
"Some crazy leader may decide to fire nuclear weapons at Japan. Or they could use them for political intimidation. Japan is quite vulnerable to intimidation. We have to do more in defence terms."
Japan's pacifism was foisted on it by the American occupiers after World War II. Junking this has always seemed far-fetched. But it's something both the US government, and much of Japan's political elite now support.
"Many Americans wish they hadn't bound Japan with the peace constitution," says Richard McGregor of the Lowy Institute.
"We shouldn't forget that people like Abe also deeply resent the Americans imposing this constitution on them. They obviously bottled up their annoyance because they want the alliance with America.
"They know they can't handle China on their own. There is a kind of seller's remorse and buyer's remorse on the peace constitution on both sides of the Pacific."
In fact, Japan is already far from being a true pacifist state, whatever its constitution proclaims.
Its navy is now amongst the most powerful in the world - quite a bit larger than Britain's Royal Navy. What Japan lacks is long-range strike capability.
Prof Yoichi Shimada says the consensus is that must now change. "The position that Japan should have weapons which can hit the enemy territory, I think that in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party the vast majority of the politicians thinks it's necessary for Japan to have such capability."
Prof Shimada says Vladimir Putin's threats against Ukraine have only made that more urgent.
Would Putin press the nuclear button?
"President Putin actually referred to the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. That amounts to a game changer for many politicians in Japan.
"Russia is one of the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations. We all know that Putin is brutal. But it is very shocking, even for him."
Unlike Ukraine, Japan has a full alliance with the United States, and a commitment from Washington to retaliate against any country that attacks Japan, including with nuclear weapons.
That has worked while America has reigned supreme. But in Asia, China is now rapidly approaching military parity with America. And then came the election of Donald Trump.
"Mr Trump said that you have to do your own security," says Hiromi Murakami, author of The Abe Legacy. "He said it explicitly. But I think the overall trend of US is basically the same as Mr Trump. You can't totally rely on the US anymore."
For some, like Ambassador Kato, the answer is to strengthen the US-Japan alliance - and for Japan to take on more of the burden of defending its own neighbourhood.
For Prof Shimada it could mean one day Japan will have to develop its own nuclear deterrent.
One thing everyone I spoke to agreed is that Japan must somehow get over the taboo of talking about its own defence.
"This has been avoided for many, many years." says Ms Murakami.
"But the Japanese leadership really needs to bring this to the table and show it to the public. We can't live in this fake world any longer.
"This Ukraine situation is really shocking, and I hope that it will trigger the leadership and the general public to really think."
Abe murder suspect quit most recent job after he felt ‘tired’
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/07/08/national/crime-legal/shinzo-abe-murder-suspect-tetsuya-yamagami/
The man who allegedly killed former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday did not seem to be politically active, a source from his former dispatch company has said.
Tetsuya Yamagami, 41, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, was a Maritime Self-Defense Force officer in his 20s. He lived in an apartment in the city of Nara, but quit his job in May for health reasons, according to the person.
“I never felt he had political beliefs,” the person said. “I can’t connect him to the attack.”
Yamagami, who attended a public high school in Nara Prefecture, wrote in his graduation yearbook that he “didn’t have a clue” what he wanted to be in the future.
According to government officials, Yamagami served in the MSDF for two years and nine months through 2005 at the Kure base in Hiroshima Prefecture.
In the fall of 2020, he started working at a manufacturing company in the Kansai region, according to an official at the dispatch company in Osaka Prefecture.
There had been no reports of trouble from the manufacturer. But in April this year, Yamagami told the dispatch company that he wanted to quit because he was “tired,” and he left the job the following month.
Good luck with that, Joe.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ArtValley818_/status/1545414286461218817