A Hong Kong English-language newspaper says a former U.S. Navy commander has called for a nuclear-armed Japan in a bid to tackle North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.
 
The South China Morning Post quoted retired vice admiral John Bird as saying at a recent seminar that the U.S. should agree on an expansion of nuclear weapons capabilities in Japan to curtail the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. He said “such a scenario would prompt China to restrain its neighbor and traditional ally.”
 
He went on to say that the suggestion of a nuclear-armed Japan as a balancing force might also force China to back away from its demand that the U.S. and Seoul dismantle the THAAD antimissile system deployed on the Korean Peninsula by the U.S.
 
Japan’s current constitution, drafted by U.S. occupation forces and unchanged since 1947, bars the use of military force in settling international disputes and prohibits maintaining a military for warfare.
 
However, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has called for a more active role by Japan in international politics, claimed last year that there is nothing in Japan’s constitution that explicitly forbids Japan from possessing or using nuclear weapons.

[Photo : ]