風知草：戦後は続く、どこまでも＝山田孝男

(Mainichi Japan) March 26, 2012
Japan's postwar nuclear policy lingers
風知草：戦後は続く、どこまでも＝山田孝男

There are two types of atomic weapons. One is a uranium-kind or "Hiroshima-type" bomb and the other is a plutonium-kind or "Nagasaki-type" bomb. Iran says it is stockpiling enriched uranium for peaceful purposes but is suspected of having nuclear ambitions. Japan is also maintaining plutonium but is not suspected of going nuclear.
　原爆の製造法は二つある。ウランを濃縮する広島型と、プルトニウムを使う長崎型だ。イランは平和利用という名目で濃縮ウランを蓄え、核武装を疑われている。日本は原発から出たプルトニウムを蓄えているが、疑われていない。

However, it cannot be said that Japan does not have military intentions. A policy of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes has implications for a diversion of nuclear energy for military use anytime. Nuclear energy is not unrelated to the military.
　だが、日本に軍事的意図がまったくないとは言えない。平和利用目的の原子力エネルギーにはいつでも軍事転用できるという含みがある。原発は軍事と無関係ではない。

According to Akira Kurosaki, associate professor at Fukushima University who received the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities for his 2006 book, "Nuclear Weapons and Japan-U.S. Relations," there were many materials to support the intentions of Japanese politicians and diplomats who tried to make Japan a potential nuclear power by promoting nuclear energy in the 1960s when the nation's post-World War II nuclear policy firmed up.
　「核兵器と日米関係」（０６年、有志舎刊）でサントリー学芸賞を受賞した黒崎輝（あきら）・福島大准教授（３９）によれば、戦後日本の核政策が固まった１９６０年代、原発推進によって「潜在的核保有国」になろうとした政治家や外交官の意図を裏づける資料はたくさんある。

The prime minister at the time was Eisaku Sato (1901-1975). Sato presented four nuclear policies -- maintaining three non-nuclear principles of not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan, relying on an American nuclear deterrent, promoting the peaceful use of nuclear power and promoting nuclear disarmament.
　当時の首相は佐藤栄作（１９０１～７５）だった。佐藤は四つの核政策を示した。「非核三原則（核兵器をつくらず、持たず、持ち込ませず）堅持」「アメリカの核抑止力に依存」「原子力の平和利用推進」「核軍縮推進」である。

The promotion of the peaceful use of nuclear power has a hidden intention of potentially possessing nuclear weapons.
　このうち「原子力の平和利用推進」には潜在的核保有への意志が秘められていた。

Prime Minister Sato reacted bitterly to China's nuclear weapons test in 1964 and told then U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer that Japan was fully capable of producing nuclear weapons with its scientific and industrial technologies. It was in 1965 that Japan's first commercial nuclear power plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, achieved criticality.
　６４年、中国の核実験に強く反発した佐藤は、ライシャワー駐日米大使に「核（兵器）は日本の科学、産業技術で十分、生産できる」と語った。茨城県東海村で日本初の原発が臨界に達したのが６５年だ。

In 1969, a study team of senior Foreign Ministry officials secretly produced an internal document on always holding Japan's potential to maintain economic and technological prowess to produce nuclear weapons. It was prepared shortly before the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows only the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China to possess nuclear weapons. The No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant was completed in 1970. The Mainichi Shimbun had a scoop on the Foreign Ministry in-house document in 1994.
　６９年、外務省高官の研究チームが「核兵器製造の経済的・技術的ポテンシャル（能力）は常に保持する」という内部文書をひそかにまとめた。米ソ英仏中にだけ核保有を認めるＮＰＴ（核拡散防止条約）締結直前。福島第１原発１号機完成が７０年。この文書は９４年、毎日新聞のスクープで露見した。

Kurosaki says the four nuclear policies were not necessarily drawn up by Sato. He put together and rubber-stamped the policies formulated after heated debate through Japan-U.S. negotiations, bureaucrats in the Kasumigaseki district, industry and ruling and opposition party lawmakers.
　黒崎によれば、核４政策は佐藤の独創とは言えない。それ以前の日米交渉、霞が関、産業界、与野党のせめぎ合いを踏まえて形成された政策をまとめ、追認したにすぎない。

Even after that, the undercurrent surrounding Japan's nuclear policy did not change. When North Korea's nuclear problems surfaced in the 1990s, calls for Japan to go nuclear emerged, but they are still minority opinions even to this day.
　その後も底流は変わらなかった。北朝鮮の核問題が浮上した９０年代、日本でも核武装論が噴出したが、今なお少数意見にとどまっている。

In 2007, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and three other nuclear arms experts pointed out that the traditional concept of nuclear deterrence has become obsolete in the post-Cold War era. In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama drew global attention by calling for a world free of nuclear weapons, but the world has subsequently witnessed Chinese and Russian military expansion and North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons development.
　０７年、アメリカの核戦略の中心にいたキッシンジャーら４識者が伝統的な核抑止理論の破綻を指摘。０９年、オバマ米大統領が核廃絶を説いて耳目を集めたが、以後の世界は、むしろ中露の軍拡、北朝鮮・イランの核開発へ逆行した。

I interviewed Kurosaki in his office at Fukushima University last week. High-pressure cleaning vehicles were flushing radioactive materials from the campus. A native of the city of Niigata, Kurosaki studied law at Tohoku University and served as an assistant at Rikkyo University and held other posts before assuming his current post in 2009. If atomic weapons and nuclear power are two sides of the same coin, the March 11, 2011 twin natural disasters and resultant nuclear crisis appear to have forced Japan to radically change the course of its nuclear policy.
　黒崎の話は先週、福島大の研究室で聞いた。高圧洗浄車がキャンパスの放射性物質を洗い流していた。新潟市出身の黒崎は東北大で学び、立教大助手を経て０９年着任した。原爆と原発は表裏一体だとすれば、３・１１は日本の核政策に根本的な修正を迫るものではなかったか。

Japan possesses 45 tons of reprocessed plutonium which could be converted to military use. That amounts to about 4,000 "Nagasaki-type" atomic bombs. Japan can reduce its reprocessed plutonium by burning it at a fast-breeder reactor or pluthermal plant (using mixed oxide of uranium-plutonium fuel), but the prospects are bleak.
　日本は軍事転用可能な再処理済みプルトニウムを４５トン持っている。長崎型原爆４０００発分という。高速増殖炉やプルサーマル（プルトニウムとウランの混合燃料を使う原発）で燃やせば減るが、見通しは暗い。

One wonders whether Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda would say Japan can carry out a nuclear fuel cycle using its own technology even though he has been unable to bring the collapsed nuclear power plant under control. Is there an option left for Japan to go nuclear today?
　崩壊した原発の制御さえできないのに、野田佳彦首相は、核燃料サイクル（再利用）は「日本の技術で可能」と言うだろうか。今日、日本核武装という選択肢があるだろうか。

A two-day nuclear security summit opened in Seoul on March 26 by bringing together leaders of 53 countries. There is no argument about the need for debate on ways to prevent nuclear materials from finding their way into the hands of terrorists, but I also want these leaders to discuss a policy not to produce a dangerous and excessive volume of plutonium.
　２６日、ソウルに世界５３カ国首脳を集めて「核安全保障サミット」が開かれる。核物質をテロリストに渡さぬ相談に異存はないが、危険な余剰プルトニウムを生まない政策をこそ話し合ってもらいたい。（敬称略）（毎週月曜日掲載）

(By Takao Yamada, Expert Senior Writer)
毎日新聞　2012年3月26日　東京朝刊