Anti-nuclear Japanese visit

Press, 19 April 1986, Page 8

Anti-nuclear Japanese visit

By

BRUCE ROSCOE

in Tokyo

The leader of Japan’s biggest and strongly antinuclear opposition party will arrive in New Zealand today to examine what he calls a model of a non-nuclear country. Mr Masashi Ishibashi, chairman of the Japan Socialist Party, is visiting at the invitation of the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and will spend three days in Wellington for talks on New Zealand ’ non-nuclear policies. “Where does the energy come from for New Zealand’s successful nonnuclear policy? I want to study all aspects of Lange’s policy,” Mr Ishibashi said before leaving Japan. “If there is something to learn, we want to learn from it.” Mr Ishibashi believes Japan should reverse its nuclear policy and help create an “Asia-Pacific nuclear-free zone” to complement the New Zealand push for a nuclearfree zone in the South Pacific.

He said he would implement the same policies as Mr Lange if he became Prime Minister of Japan. The Japanese Socialists, however, do not stand a good chance of coming to power except as a coalition Government with the Buddhist Soka Gakkaibacked Komeito Party or possibly the Democratic Socialists. The Socialists are split by rival factions which hold different ideological viewpoints, even on nuclear policy.

Mr Ishibashi opposes nuclear weapons as well as nuclear power generation, but a large faction in his party supports nuclear power.

Asked to comment on reports that Mr Lange was unwelcome in Japan because of fears New Zealand’s strict non-nuclear policy would be compared publicly with Japan’s lax non-nuclear principles, Mr Ishibashi said, “That is entirely believable, Mr Nakasone’s non-nuclear policy is all talk.