May 21, 2023

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on May 20 issued a statement on “G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament”. The full text of Shii’s statement is as follows:

G7 leaders on May 19 published “G7 Leaders’ Hiroshima Vision on Nuclear Disarmament”. With this year’s summit being held in Hiroshima, many people in Japan and abroad expected that the leaders would send out a positive message calling for nuclear disarmament. The Hiroshima Vision, however, has thoroughly failed to meet their expectations.

Hiroshima Vision does mention “a world without nuclear weapons”, but calls it “the ultimate goal”, suggesting that it will not be achieved for the indefinite future.

Most gravely, the document upholds the nuclear deterrence doctrine, noting that nuclear weapons “deter aggression and prevent war and coercion”. Accepting the doctrine means that nuclear weapons will be used when deemed necessary without hesitating which will trigger an inhumane catastrophe like what happened after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Advocating such a position in the atomic-bombed city is totally unacceptable as it is tantamount to making fools of Hibakusha and people in communities that suffered nuclear attacks.

Although Hiroshima Vision cites the historical fact that people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered “immense human suffering”, it fails to criticise or condemn the inhumane nature of nuclear weapons.

The document says nothing about nuclear weapon states’ commitments to pursue nuclear disarmament under article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, such as “[a]n unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals” (the final document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference).

No mention was made of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The G7 leaders turn a blind eye on the treaty, which has been signed by more than 90 states, as if there were no such thing.

What did they see during their tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum?

The leaders should be ashamed to have declared their adherence to the need to maintain nuclear weapons in the city that experienced an atomic bombing.

With the presidency of the G7 being held currently by Japan, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio should be held responsible for issuing such a shameful document. What A-bomb survivors, civil movement activists, and many leaders of governments and states in the world demand is, as Indonesian President Joko Widodo put it, “Nuclear weapons must be destroyed”, i.e. a legal ban and elimination of nuclear weapons. Joko was invited to the G7 summit as his country currently holds the ASEAN presidency.

The JCP demands that the Japanese government abandon the nuclear deterrence doctrine and join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.