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By Donald Kirk
The gaunt ruin of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial formed a stark backdrop to the G7 summit as leaders of the seven major industrial democracies and observers from other nations met to fend off wars that could trigger the next nuclear conflagration.
Their host, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is from Hiroshima, began the talkfest by escorting his fellow potentates to the Genbaku Dome, the ghostly ruin of the first nuclear bomb dropped in warfare on Aug. 6, 1945.
President Joe Biden was not there to apologize for the bomb that killed at least 70,000 people. But his visit to the Peace Memorial was a powerful reminder of the urgent need to look for peace in a world beset by the dangers of wars that could engulf much of humanity. Right now, the hottest war is being fought in Ukraine, where the G-7 leaders agreed totally on the need to stanch the bleeding of the Russian invasion that's cost, by some estimates, 50,000 lives.
Just to get the G7 leaders to match their bold words with promises of much more military aid, including F-16 fighter planes, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met them in Hiroshima after visiting Saudi Arabia, where he had appealed for aid from a much different forum, the Arab League. For Zelenskyy, the symbolism of Hiroshima could hardly have been more appropriate considering the danger of Russian nukes poised near Ukraine's borders.
On the opposite side of the Eurasian landmass, China, looking very much like Russia's best friend and ally, poses a threat that may be of still bigger proportions. With every passing day, fears mount of a Chinese attack on the independent Chinese island province of Taiwan.
But Taiwan is not the only Asian flashpoint that worries the G7. Some analysts believe China is just as likely to open fire on the South China Sea, which China claims as its own territory. American warships periodically steam within eyesight of an airstrip the Chinese have built on Mischief Reef, in the Spratly Islands, while American warplanes defy Chinese warnings to fly away.
A much bigger nuclear threat, at least judging from the rhetoric, emanates from North Korea, where leader Kim Jong-un has ordered missile tests this year, including that of an intercontinental model powered by solid fuel, used to quickly and definitively launch missiles before spy satellites notice. Kim has not ordered a nuclear test since September 2017, but his short and intermediate-range missiles, bearing nuclear warheads, theoretically could hit targets in South Korea and Japan.
With images of the death and destruction inflicted by the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan remains dead set against producing its own nuclear warheads to match those of North Korea, which may have more than 100 by now, or China, estimated to have several hundred. South Korean conservatives often call for the South to begin developing nukes while the U.S. assures both Korea and Japan of the security of its "nuclear umbrella" with warheads on American ships and planes and also on bases in Guam and Hawaii.
The impression, fortified by the meeting of the G7 in Japan, is that Washington is forming a defensive line extending from Japan and South Korea, through Taiwan and the Philippines, and on down to Australia.
Biden sought to brace up confidence in this defensive network even though he had to cancel plans to go to Australia after the summit for a meeting of the Quad Four, including both Japan and India as well as the U.S. and Australia, and then on to Papua New Guinea (PNG) for a session of the Pacific Islands Forum of 18 South Pacific nations.
There was no doubt the cancellation of visits to Sydney and then the PNG capital, Port Moresby, was a severe disappointment considering China's aggressive pursuit of influence and trade throughout the South Pacific. But Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi were both in Hiroshima as observers. Together they staged a Quad Four meeting on the sidelines of the G-7.
Chinese commentators persisted in saying that the cancellation of the second half of Biden's Pacific journey was evidence of "declining U.S. power" and a betrayal of its "commitments." That was the same word, of course, that Biden often uses to assure the leaders of Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines that he will always stand by them against China.
Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, writes from Seoul and Washington.
