2016.05.25

President Obama should visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

President Obama should visit Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum by all means. The schedule of President is not yet announced, while the Museum is closed on the afternoon of May 27, the day of Presidential visit to Hiroshima.
The Museums of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the only places where the visitors can time trip back to the nuclear explosion of seventy-one years ago and can feel its real nature. Nothing else is equally important.

2016.05.21

President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima

One reason why the nuclear weapons are not abolished is they are needed in the actual international politics as deterrent, but the real reason is that people do not have true understanding about the inhumanity of nuclear weapons.
Weapons are inhumane by nature but some of them cause extraordinary consequences so that movements to prohibit these weapons were begun from the end of 19th century. The United Nations further developed and elaborated the concept of inhumanity, and created treaties to ban use of inhumane weapons.
As a result, ‘excessive’ and ‘indiscriminate’ are identified as factors to characterize the inhumane nature of weapons.
The nuclear weapons injure and kill a vast amount of civilians, in addition to the problems that they are excessively injurious and cause indiscriminate effects.
However there is no treaty to ban the use of nuclear weapons whereas other inhumane weapons such as poison gas and anti-personnel mines are banned by treaties.
Nuclear disarmament and prohibition of nuclear weapons are now under debate in the framework of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the United Nations, but reaching agreement on the use of nuclear weapons seems as difficult as their entire abolition. Disagreement between the nuclear weapon states and non nuclear weapon states is so deep.
Under such circumstances, international movements to establish the concept of inhumanity were launched from a few years ago. It was preceded by the advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons by the International Court of Justice which was handed down in 1996. It said that the use of nuclear weapons was in principle against the international humanitarian law, but this was just an “advisory opinion“ that had no legally binding force on states.
A newly launched movement aims to create political consensus by countries on the inhumanity of nuclear weapons.
Even in this movement, however, consensus on the inhumanity of nuclear weapons is not achieved yet because the deterrence theory has a strong influence there too.
Japanese government is recommending world leaders to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and directly feel how inhumane the nuclear weapons and their consequences are. Visit to the cities enables people to understand inhumanity of nuclear weapons through direct “experience”, while global movements described above is to achieve the goal by words. The G7 meeting held at Hiroshima this April was greatly effective to let them feel the inhumanity of nuclear weapons.
What is particularly important here was that feeling the inhumanity of nuclear weapons by direct experience was so different from understanding by words. United States Secretary State John Kerry frankly confessed that he was surprised.
I was the Ambassador of Delegation of Japan to the Conference on Disarmament, and had chances to visit with Western people the memorial museums in Hiroshima and in Nagasaki. I remember so well that they were astonished by what they had seen and felt there because it was quite different from what they had known before.
Actually people’s understanding of the inhumanity of nuclear weapons is not deep enough even though they think they know it intellectually. If they really understand they may become more serious about nuclear disarmament. If they understand the cruelty of nuclear weapons not only by words but also by experience, they can be different. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for us to correctly understand the real situation of nuclear bombing.
President Obama decided to visit Hiroshima overcoming lots of negative opinions against the visit. Some people were worried that the president would be required to apologize. But that should not happen obviously. President Obama’s decision is of great importance beyond description for nuclear disarmament, and for the US-Japan relationship, and even for world peace.
Hoping the US president will visit Nagasaki too in the near future, I wish the presidential visit to Hiroshima will be completed without difficulty.
(長江隆氏の協力によりTHEPAGEへの寄稿文を英訳）

2016.05.16

（短評）ドゥテルテ・フィリピン新大統領をどう見るか

　来る６月３０日にフィリピンの新大統領に就任するドゥテルテ氏は過激な発言で知られている。米国の大統領選でやはり過激な発言を武器に支持を拡大し、共和党の候補にほぼ確定しているトランプ氏によくなぞらえられているが、両者の間にはかなり違っている面があると思う。
　ドゥテルテの発言は、単に「過激」なだけでなく、たとえば、「私が大統領になれば、血を見る機会が増える」「犯罪者は殺す」と言ったり、同氏が女性を侮蔑する発言をしたので米国とオーストラリアの大使が非難したのに対して、「黙れ、両国と関係を切ってもいい」と言い放ったりするなど、「常軌を逸した」と評するほうが適切な感じがするくらいだ。
　女性を侮蔑する発言は、１９８９年にダバオで起きた刑務所暴動でオーストラリア人修道女が強姦殺人された事件について、自分が先に強姦しておけばよかったと冗談で言ったものであり、これは絶対許されないはずだ。ドゥテルテは後で謝罪したが、そんなことで切り抜けられるような問題ではないだろう。
　トランプもえげつないことを口にするが、ドゥテルテには及ばないようだ。

　外交政策においてはもっと顕著な違いが見られる。
　トランプの場合は、「偉大な米国を復活させる」ことを重視すると同時に、メキシコ、韓国、日本などに対する一方的認識、思い込みに基づいた攻撃的な注文をするところに特徴がある。
　一方、ドゥテルテは、他国に対する一方的な認識や判断は、少なくとも今のところ、見られない。前述した「関係断絶発言」も特定の国に対するものでなく、批判をされたのに対する反撃だった。常軌を逸する内容だが、特定国を攻撃したのではなかった。

　ドゥテルテの対中政策がどうなるか、これはとくに注目されている。フィリピンは南シナ海で中国と争っており、国際仲裁裁判所に提訴している。
　ドゥテルテは、裁判では南シナ海問題は解決できず、中国との話し合いが必要との考えであり、その理由は「祖父が中国人だから」だという説もある。
　しかし、ドゥテルテは、中国と領有権を争っている「スカーボロー礁に行って旗を立てる」とも発言している。話し合いについても、中国と２国間で行うという意味でなく、多国間で協議すると言っている。これは中国が嫌うことだ。このようなことから、ドゥアルテははたして中国に融和的か、強硬か、よくわからないとも言われている。

　ドゥテルテ新大統領には、今後官僚機構や専門家のアドバイスを受けてバランスの取れた外交政策を策定していくことを期待したい。トランプのような思い込みがないのであれば、それは可能だと思われる。
近く公表される（はずの）南シナ海に関する仲裁裁判の結果に対しドゥテルテ政権がどのように対応するか。その外交姿勢が問われることになるだろう。