August 6, 2024

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Shii Kazuo, along with activists from Vietnam, the Philippines, and South Korea, spoke as a panelist at a forum held on August 5 under the theme, “How to realize a nuclear-free, peaceful Asia”, as part of the 2024 World Conference against A and H Bombs.

Shii said that in order to create a world without nuclear weapons and a peaceful Asia, what the Japanese government should do is to abandon the nuclear deterrence theory and join in the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as well as to sincerely work to turn East Asia into a region without fear of war through peace diplomacy utilizing the pacifist Article 9 of the Constitution.

Duan Thi Nga, Secretary General of the Vietnam Peace Committee, introduced Vietnam’s “Four Nos” foreign policy which includes no partaking in military alliances, and talked about the importance of promoting the TPNW for the purpose of achieving regional development.

Lee Jun Kyu, senior researcher at the Institute for Unification and Peace Policy of Hanshin University in South Korea, said that it is important to conduct processes for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and establishing a peace regime on the peninsula in an integrated manner, and stressed that in this regard, multilateral cooperation is necessary.