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Nuclear Disarmament
Injured civilians, having escaped the raging inferno, gathered on a pavement west of Miyuki-bashi in Hiroshima, Japan, at about 11 a.m. on 6 August 1945. Credit: UN Photo/Yoshito Matsushige
On the 80th anniversary, which was commemorated in August 2025, Izumi Nakamitsu, UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said: “We remember those who perished. We stand with the families who carry their memory,” as she delivered the UN Secretary-General’s message.
She paid tribute to the hibakusha – the term for those who survived Hiroshima and the atomic bombing of Nagasaki – “whose voices have become a moral force for peace. While their numbers grow smaller each year, their testimony — and their eternal message of peace — will never leave us,” she said.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 2026 (IPS) – The two current ongoing conflicts, which have claimed the lives of hundreds and thousands of people, are between nuclear and non-nuclear states: Russia vs Ukraine and Israel vs Palestine, while some of the potential nuclear vs non-nuclear conflicts include China vs Taiwan, North Korea vs South Korea and the United States vs Iran (Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba and Denmark).
The growing list now includes another potential conflict: nuclear China vs non-nuclear Japan is the world’s only country devastated by US atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 which killed over 150,000 to 246,000, mostly civilians.
A statement last month by Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi warned that her country could intervene militarily if China were to attack Taiwan—a statement that has the potential for a new conflict in Asia.
According to the New York Times, Beijing has “responded furiously,” asserting that self-governing Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory. The government has also urged millions of tourists to avoid Japan, has restricted seafood imports and increased military patrols.
Meanwhile, amidst rising military tension, the Japanese government has called for a snap general election on February 8, to seek a fresh public mandate for the new administration.
In an article titled “An Anxious Nation Restarts One of its Biggest Nuclear Plants,” the Times said on January 22 that “Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO)—the same utility that operated the Fukushima plant—has restarted the first reactor, Unit 6, at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa complex, one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities.”
Before 2011, nuclear power provided about 30 percent of Japan’s electricity, the Times pointed out.
According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, Japan’s military budget in 2024 had grown to the 10th largest in the world. China’s military budget has also been growing, in 2024 being second only to that of the United States.
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation, Oakland, California, and North American Coordinator for “Mayors for Peace,” told IPS that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent statement that an armed attack on Taiwan by China could constitute an “existential threat” to Japan is very worrying indeed.