“Nuclear Allergy” In Japan Abating

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32078, 28 August 1969, Page 23

“Nuclear Allergy” In Japan Abating

(From a special correspondent in Tokyo)

There is no doubt that 24 years after Hiroshima, Japan’s “nuclear allergy” is not what it used to be. No longer is the atom, by itself, the emotion-charged issue that it was in 1949 or 1959. The Japanese, to be sure, still regard atomic warfare with an unparalleled dread. And well they should. But there's no longer the same; massive unity and vigour in; Japanese protests against ! nuclear weapons. What; started as a genuine, popular movement against nuclear ! tests in 1954, when the fishing; boat Lucky Dragon was exposed to radioactive fall-out■ from a Bikini Atoll test, hasbeen largely dissipated by; political strife. It seems, from conversa-1 tion with Japanese, that, there is today much less of the feeling of "national mar-; tyrdom” that has pervaded the islands since the horrors; of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One explanation is that many of Japan’s bright ener-i getic younger generation can-; not easily identify themselves, as individuals, with those black times.

A survey of young men and women studying politics at Japanese universities showed that 58 per cent believe their country will develop its own nuclear weapons within 20 years. (More than half of these thought Japan would go nuclear inside 10 years.) Leftist student demonstrators, who have disrupted university life this year and last, appear to be venting their anger at a patronising, unprogressive educational establishment more than at the Americans for having nuclear ships and bases near Japan. Another explanation is that Japan's record-breaking economic progress has brought: a new confidence, where fear of nuclear devastation is;

i.veilding ground to expectations of a good life enriched still further by the peaceful use of the atom. No longer do local citizens demonstrate at sites chosen for nuclear power stations, though most would prefer not to have such a plant near their home. Progess in reactor technology has helped to ease the “nuclear allergy” i somewhat Mere important has been |the realisation that Japan lags far behind rivals like i West Germany, France and Britain in practical applications of nuclear energy.

j Now the Government is pressing ahead with a progamme that will deliver 10 million kilowatts of nuclear power by 1981 (or 12 per cent of national requirement). Japan still has only one commercial atomic power station, but five are under construction, and work will start on four more this fiscal

Uranium enrichment techIniques, key to production of nuclear weapons, has been a closely-guarded secret by the nuclear powes—the United ■ States, Russia, Britain, France and Communist China. But earlier this year Japanese ; scientists, among them researchers who were working on this very problem before the first A-bomb burst over ; Hiroshima, succeeded in enriching uranium by gas diffusion. And this summer 'Other scientists are testing a pioneering method of centrifuge enrichment. Neither of these developments prompted the kind of i public protest that would have been expected 10 or 20 years earlier, even though the Japanese' Government had given resolute and repeated pledges not to make or allow nuclear weapons of any kind.

Future Defence

The pro-American Prime Minister, Mr Eisaku Sato, : bracing himself for trouble next year over reconsideration [of the United States-Japan

Security Treaty, will put his case to President Nixon ip Washington in November for early return of Okinawa to Japan. Nothing can have heartened him more than a recent "New York Times” disclosure that Mr Nixon has decided—in favour of the diplomats and against the Pentagon—to move nuclear weapons out of the island base once an over-all plan for reversion has been agreed on. Such a prior arrangement would remove one of the main pillars of the leftists’ antitreaty platform for 1970. But,| by its very solution, the nuclear-base issue would bring to the surface an even bigger question. And that is the fundamental question: who is going to defend Japan in the seventies and beyond? Abrogation of the Security Treaty seems unlikely, but there could be some modification (for example extension on a year-by-year basis) to allow the Japanese themselves to take on a bigger and broader commitment. This would seem to be in line with the policy Mr Nixon enunciated during his July swing through South-East Asia.

It would also be in line with the goal of those Japanese who yearn for a genuine "great power’’ role for their country in the Pacific —a role encompassing political as well as economic might. And it would be moving precisely in the direction forecast in 1967 by General Douglas MacArthur’s one-time political adviser, William J. Sebald. In a joint study with C. Nelson Spinks, formerly of the State Department, he noted: “Although Japan may be expected to continue its opposition to the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons, the pressure of events is beginning to bring about some realisation that such weapons may be essential to two important Japanese goals, building of a strong defence and regaining a position as a full-fledged great power.”