On the occasion of the 77th Nagasaki Peace Ceremony – Fumiyasu Akegawa, Chair & CEO DEVNET International/Japan
Yoshida, captain of Japan’s national soccer team and a native of Nagasaki, uploaded a photo of Nagasaki 77 years ago and Nagasaki today on his Instagram page on August 9, and then wrote, “Think what do you want to leave for your children. STOP THE WAR.” The message “STOP THE WAR” is one that many Japanese share. On the same day, Prime Minister Kishida said in his address to the 77th Nagasaki Peace Ceremony, ” Japan will make its utmost efforts for the realization of “a world free of nuclear weapons” and eternal peace.”
Prime Minister Kishida is a native of Hiroshima Prefecture, and at the Peace Ceremony in Hiroshima three days before, as well as at the ceremony in Nagasaki, he emphasized that he himself attended the Review Conference in New York and had called for maintaining and strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which has supported world peace and security for over 50 years. Of course, Prime Minister Kishida is serious about achieving a “World Without Nuclear Weapons,” but we can only be disappointed. Although the position of a soccer player is different from that of a prime minister, I think we all feel that we want Prime Minister Kishida to say “stop the war” just as much as Yoshida did.
In his Nagasaki Peace Declaration, Nagasaki Mayor Taue mentions two important conferences in this year: the NPT Review Conference currently underway in New York, which Prime Minister Kishida attended, and the First Conference of the States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) held in Vienna in June. NPT and TPNW complement each other, and UN Secretary-General António Guterres has strongly urged NPT signatories to join the TPNW. Mayor Taue has appealed to the Japanese government to sign and ratify the TPNW as the only A-bombed country. Unfortunately, there has been no mention of TPNW by Prime Minister Kishida, either in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Japan is currently imposing economic sanctions on Russia. However, like other Western countries, most of them are hurting its own economy, not Russia’s, causing rising prices and shortages of goods. The longer the war drags on, the greater the economic damage will be. A world without nuclear weapons is not a prerequisite for peace; on the contrary, it can only be achieved through peace. The sacrifices of the Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must not be in vain. What we should do now, what the Japanese government and Prime Minister Kishida should do, is to make efforts to stop war. I strongly believe that it is the leaders of Japan who should send the message “Stop the War” to the world.
NPT entered into force in 1970 with the aim of preventing the increase in the number of nuclear weapon states (proliferation of nuclear weapons), mandates that the five nuclear weapon states (the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China) work toward the total abolition of nuclear weapons. However, nuclear disarmament has not progressed at all. TPNW entered into force in 2021 at the initiative of non-nuclear weapon states that are dissatisfied with such a situation. As the only A-bombed country, Japan must show leadership in achieving a “World Without Nuclear Weapons.”