Posted on Tuesday, December 31, 2013 11:50:31 AM by sukhoi-30mki
The real reason why Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, refuses to abandon nuclear power is because he wants to develop a nuclear weapons program, claims the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po, citing Koide Hiroaki, an assistant professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute.
There have been strong calls for Tokyo to reconsider its position on nuclear energy after the Fukushima nuclear incident in March 2011, when the Fukushima Daiichi plant north of Tokyo was hit by an earthquake and tsunami, triggering the world's worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl.
Despite the risks, Hiroaki said that Tokyo is determined to develop a nuclear bomb. As Japan is not allowed to legally import weapons-grade plutonium, he says it is able to extract the plutonium it needs from the nuclear waste from the country's power plants.
US analysts estimate that Japan currently has enough plutonium to build at least 1,000 nuclear bombs. Under its constitution Japan is not allowed to own any weapon with offensive capabilities including the nuclear bomb. However, a growing number of Japanese politicians have begun to call for the abolition of the nation's Three Non-Nuclear Principles as tension between Japan and China over the disputed East China Sea escalates.
The Three Non-Nuclear Principles were outlined by former Japanese prime minister Eisaku Sato in a speech to the House of Representatives in 1967. Under the principles, Japan shall neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor shall it permit their introduction into Japanese territory.
The principles have guided Japan's nuclear policy since their inception. However, in order to win right-wing support Abe continues to push ahead and reactive nuclear power plants in Japan despite protest from home and abroad, Wen Wei Po said, adding that this is a very dangerous move for Japan since it will only bring instability to the Asia-Pacific region.
China's $188 billion military budget far surpasses the $49 billion budget of Japan, its biggest regional rival, even if it doesn't come close toAmerica's budget of $640 billion.
China's military is also much bigger than Japan's, with lots more equipment and 2.3 million active personnel compared to 58,000. Consequently, China ranks third on the Global Firepower Index, which heavily weights sheer numbers, behind the U.S. and Russia and ahead of Japan at tenth.
But is China's military actually stronger than Japan's?
Even on its own, however, Japan's smaller military has a qualitative advantage over China.
The majority of Chinese weapons systems are in various stages of decay, as detailed by Kyle Mizokami at War Is Boring. Only 450 of China's 7,580 tanks are anywhere near modern. Likewise, only 502 of China's 1,321 strong air force are deemed capable — the rest date to refurbished Soviet planes from the 1970s. Only half of China's submarines have been built within the past twenty years.
In comparison, Japan has been supplied with advanced military equipment from the U.S. In the coming year, it is slated to purchase new anti-missile destroyers, submarines, amphibious vehicles, surveillance drones, fighter planes, and V-22 Ospreys from the U.S. Japan also expects to receive deliveries of F-35s starting in March 2017.
The F-35 is Liaoning's worst nightmare, China's state-owned Global Times reported based on aKanwa Asian Defense, which found that the F-35 could strike the Liaoning with hard-to-intercept joint strike missiles from a safe distance of 290km. The F-35 should also be able to locate and engage China's main aircraft, the J-15, before the F-35 is even detected.
The Japanese islands are also well protected by a missile defense system equipped with Standard Missile-3 and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors. These missiles are capable of shooting down a ballistic missile both inside and outside of Earth's atmosphere.
"Japan has the strongest navy and air force in Asia except for the United States," Dr. Larry M. Wortzel, the president of Asia Strategies and Risks, said in a presentation at the Institute of World Politics last September. "They're still restricted by Article 9 of the Constitution, which forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation ... but you don't want to mess with them."
While Japan maintains a significant qualitative advantage, however, the vast size of China's military should not be understated, nor its rapid expansion and modernization. No wonder Japan has responded with its first military expansion in more than 40 years.
Meanwhile, the standoff is hurting most groups short of the military industrial complex.
As noted by U.S. Trust's Joseph Quinlan: "No one is predicting an armed conflict between China and Japan, but the rising ill will between the two parties hardly engenders investor confidence in a region built on peaceful regional relations and unfettered trade and investment flows."