Hiroshima and Nagasaki at 75: The nuclearisation of US-China rivalry has serious implications for regional security.
Japan marking the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing, at a park in in Hiroshima on August 6,2020. – AFP
Since then, despite repeated diplomatic efforts, treaty commitments, major political moments like the end of the Cold War, mass protests, international court judgments that they are illegal and religious dicta on their immorality, there has been no consensus among the great powers on whether and how to eliminate nuclear weapons.Asia had no choice but to contemplate the economic and political consequences of the unfolding contest between the US and China.
Many historians researching the US' decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan do not concur with these views. But there was no question that the atomic focus quickly shifted to Europe as Soviet Russia was seen as an existential threat to the West. As the alliance between Russia and the West, forged during World War II, morphed into an all-out confrontation in Europe, nuclear weapons became quite central to the new tragedy that unfolded in Europe and across the Atlantic.
Although many Asian powers crashed into the atomic club, they made little difference to the central nuclear balance between the US and the Soviet Union.The concerns of the great powers were about preventing the losers of World War II – Germany and Japan – from acquiring nuclear weapons. The US and Russia devised the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in the late 1960s to codify this prohibition.
Last year, the US withdrew from the INF treaty. Washington argues that China's absence from the treaty had allowed it to develop an arsenal of medium-range missiles that now threaten US military primacy in Asia. "China's nuclear expansion and its refusal to engage in meaningful dialogue will affect stability on multiple levels," Mr Anderson said."Increased US nuclear force requirements to ensure credible deterrence against China would affect the United States-Russia strategic nuclear balance and threaten to undermine the prospects for further negotiated reductions."
As the Asian nations question the reliability of the US' security guarantees and worry about China's muscular regional policies, there is a growing sense that they might have to beef up their own military capabilities in this uncertain security environment.
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