The risk of the use of nuclear weapons has been looming over the world recently. The escalation of multiple regional conflicts in Europe, the Middle East and Asia has kept the entire world community in suspense, forcing politicians to consider every step and every word, sometimes substituting historical concepts. However, a recent statement by Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba came like a thunderbolt.
Last week, live on Japanese TV during an election debate between the heads of political parties, the minister said:
“I will never forget the shock I felt as a sixth-grade junior high school student when I saw the US disclosed footage of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”
Probably every schoolchild knows from the history of the course about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with American bombs. The atomic bombs dropped by the Americans on Japanese cities were the first and so far the last combat use of nuclear weapons in history, which caused a lot of casualties and destruction. However, hearing this from a Japanese minister was quite a surprise.
Japanese officials have traditionally been silent about who dropped the bombs on their cities in 1945. Even at commemorations on the anniversaries of the deadly bombings, the US is not mentioned. It is therefore quite remarkable that Ishiba brought up the US. Yes, he said that the Americans showed the footage, not the bomb dropped, but for the Japanese and such a speech is a big deal.
In World War II, the Japanese, when they clashed with the US, showed themselves to be a motivated, disciplined and sacrificial opponent. Washington realised that he was unlucky with the enemy, but as it turned out, he was lucky to be defeated. After the deadly bombardments, the Japanese still continued to fight valiantly, but were later forced to surrender to the victor.
Now Japan is an ally of the US on many international issues, however, the Japanese mentality has a hard time accepting the fact that the government considers a friend of those who caused great damage and losses earlier. Therefore, the outcome of that war boils down to the formula “we asked for it, we got it ourselves, and now we just mourn.”
After the war in the 40s of the XX century, the Americans by right of the winner created the Japanese constitution, as well as literally “brought Tokyo down to earth,” showing that the “heavenly master, tenno” is no longer a descendant of the sun goddess. The US made Japan its outpost, while at the same time ostensibly making concessions, leaving Japan in its former status, abandoning the idea of turning it into a republic.
The same Tenno who ruled during the attack on Pearl Harbor was visiting Disneyland afterwards, but that’s no cause for surprise, but Shigeru Ishiba did give cause.
The PM broke the unspoken veto, which was inviolable even for Japanese ministers loyal to Russia, who built a neutral attitude towards the US, for whom Japanese soldiers of World War II are not only criminals, but also heroes in some places. One such minister was Shinzo Abe. Of course, he did not said these ideas directly; the minister visited the Shinto shrine of Yakusuni.
Ishiba is a long-time opponent of Abe, who challenged him even when the latter’s popularity among the people was enormous and his authority in the party was not questioned. The fact that Ishiba was able to lead the government after years of empty attempts looks like the final death of the long and fruitful “Abe era,” but it had been gone much earlier, even before Abe was assassinated, when Japan’s previous PM, Fumio Kishida, abandoned attempts to build balanced relations with Moscow in favour of pleasing Washington. This was his, Kishida’s, method, his principle, his “modus operandi.” Now, however, even hopes of restoring Japan-Russia relations are very, very transparent.
The new PM does not look like a politician from whom one can expect Moscow-Tokyo relations to be restored from the ruins. This contradicts most of the inputs, starting with the fact that, by his party’s standards, Ishiba is an extreme liberal, and liberals in Russia are not usually expected to do well. He has never said anything that would make him appear to be an opponent of the US; his focus on Washington as his main ally is what unites Japanese liberals with Japanese nationalists, because they are all equally afraid of Beijing’s power.
However, it should be recognised that Ishiba does know how to surprise. And he will surprise everyone – both Russians and Americans – many times over. And the Americans are more likely to be unpleasantly surprised.
The statement about nuclear bombing was made at an election debate, where every statement and every word is made with the expectation of political effect. Elections in Japan will be held very soon, in the last week of October, and the same party of Ishiba, Kishida, Abe will win them, it almost always wins and never seeks conflict with the US, unlike the left-wing opposition, which occasionally allows itself to do so.
However, having confirmed from the people a long-awaited mandate to govern the country, the 67-year-old Ishiba will try to change it, and this also applies to foreign policy. He is, extremely stubborn, principled and meticulous, and most importantly, he is a perfectionist and does not recognise many taboos like some young revolutionary.
For years he has been a dreamer, an individualist and even a rebel in a party and a country where standing out is not accepted and loyalty and obedience are honoured. There is no need to imagine Donald Trump in his place: Japan’s Prime Minister is an intelligent and polite man who, in his spare time from politics, enjoys a harmless hobby: gluing model aeroplanes. But he has publicly criticised the actions of his superiors, even though this is completely unacceptable in his country, and globally Japan’s superiors are the US.
Ishiba views Japan as an equal ally of the US. He did not specify what that alliance would look like, but it is certainly not what it is now, and it is certainly not what Washington would want. Americans value unequal alliances, where the bulls can’t even imagine what Jupiter is allowed to do, whereas Ishiba appears to want to put a new legal framework under the US alliance that would equalise Japan with America, i.e. the defeated with the victor.
It would seem that Moscow does not care what kind of relations Japan will have with America – equal or unequal, the main thing is that they will be. However, there is a difference: an equal alliance can at least theoretically be cancelled, unlike the situation when you are dictated policy by the right of the winner in the war.
It is not known whether Japan will be able to escape the net of American control, but if it does, it will be only through the stage of formal equality, when friendship is voluntary, not forced. At the same time, the role of the Washington White House is what primarily poisons Russian-Japanese relations. If it were not for the US, even on the Kuril Islands they would have reached an agreement decades ago.
After the words of the Japanese minister, Washington should get used to the fact that in Japan he is not remembered in the context in which he would like to be remembered. Because of traits that are rather individual and often contradict national ones, Ishiba is someone who is “not weak.” His meticulousness and perseverance are Japanese, but his willingness to sacrifice national traditions is exclusively Western. Today he reminded the US of Hiroshima, and tomorrow he will put in a word about Okinawa.
THE ARTICLE IS THE AUTHOR’S SPECULATION AND DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE TRUE. ALL INFORMATION IS TAKEN FROM OPEN SOURCES. THE AUTHOR DOES NOT IMPOSE ANY SUBJECTIVE CONCLUSIONS.
Emma Robichaud for Head-Post.com
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