South China Sea row clouds anniversary of nuclear bombing

The splendour of Nagasaki can only be savoured in instalments.

On leaving the airport on Omura Bay, a gorgeous blue of water between tree-lined hills and villas patched up to their breezy heights, as well as roads and bridges that literally cut through the earth and beautiful forests for miles, take away your breath.

Homes and bridges half-concealed by trees, and small rice paddies, a feature on many a rural Japanese home, caress your eyes and warm your heart as you drive towards the city centre, 30 minutes away.

Churches of Romanesque architecture further up the hills, as well as its subtropical climate, drove Nagai Kafu, one of the leading Japanese novelists, to cry “the Naples of the East” on seeing this city located on Kyushu Island, southwest of Japan.

This beauty and serenity was shattered on the morning of August 9, 1945, when a United States B-29 bomber Bockscar carrying a plutonium bomb, dubbed ‘Fat Man’, was dropped on the city, killing nearly a third of its population instantly and changing the world forever.

The bomb, shaped like a giant egg and painted mustard yellow, was targeted at the Mitsubishi Steel and Arms Works, but it exploded in a populous civilian district, killing 73,884 people, according to estimates at the Peace Memorial Park, located 500 metres from the hypocentre of the blast.

Colour footage of the explosion that was filmed from the Great Artiste, a US observation aircraft used during the bombing, shows nearby clouds moving out, propelled by the shockwave. Remains of the nuclear fireball, pink and orange, rose.

DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

On the ground was horror, death and destruction, only superseded by the effect of the bombing three days earlier of Hiroshima.

The bombing of Nagasaki was itself accidental as it was not the primary target. Kokura, a city that had an arms factory, was.

Poor visibility, however, shifted the target to Nagasaki, a city that manufactured engines and torpedoes and was an important port — making it an attractive target — but it was also home to an Allied prisoners-of-war camp.

Leaving an apocalypse behind, the 27-year-old bombardier, Major- General Charles W. Sweeney, flew the Bockscar around the mushroom cloud once and headed for Okinawa, the nearest emergency base, arriving at 1.20pm enroute to the US.

The bombing at the end of the Second World War led to Japan’s unconditional surrender on August 15, and an outcry from across the world on the inhumanity of nuclear weapons and the senselessness of war.

Sparked by Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939, the Second World War was the most widespread and deadliest in history, involving more than 30 countries and killing more than 50 million soldiers and civilians.

The war ended with the Allied Forces’ defeat of both Nazi Germany and Japan in 1945 with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This year’s anniversary came months after US President Barack Obama visited Hiroshima, the first by a sitting US leader to an atomic bomb site.

“Seventy-one years ago, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. The flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself,” Mr Obama said in a speech that was received well by many in Japan, even though it fell short of an apology.
Speakers at the anniversary this week both in Nagasaki and Hiroshima upped their calls for the world to unite in abolishing nuclear weapons.

EIGHT UNINHABITED ISLANDS

The 71st anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima came against the backdrop of the drums of war being beaten over the South China Sea.

Japan’s Foreign minister this week said the situation surrounding the Japan-China relationship was “significantly deteriorating”. Ties between Asia’s largest economies have been strained by a row over a group of islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

At the centre of the dispute are eight uninhabited islands and rocks in the East China Sea covering an area of about 7 square kilometres.

The islands lie northeast of Taiwan, east of the Chinese mainland, and southwest of Japan’s southern-most province, Okinawa. The islands are controlled by Japan.

The dispute excites nationalist passions in Japan and China, which piles pressure on politicians to talk tough. This is dampening efforts to find a solution.

China also claims most of the South China Sea, where The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.

China last month rejected outright a ruling by an international tribunal in The Hague that declared large areas of the sea to be neutral international waters or the exclusive economic zones of other countries.

Beijing has, instead, increased military presence in the area, causing Vietnam to send rocket launchers to fortify its islands there.

The anniversary also came in the week South Korea, Japan’s and US’ ally, announced it might overturn its more than 50-year history of opposition to nuclear capacity if its belligerent neighbour North Korea continued to develop the bomb.

The Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship conducted its fourth underground nuclear test in January and has also been testing ballistic missiles, even this week, both breaches of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Mr Lee Duk-haeng, an official, said South Korea was getting concerned and that it was no longer a matter for the Korean Peninsula only.

“For Australia, this is not a distant problem. And maybe Japan as well,” he told Fairfax Media.

The writer was on a recent African media tour of Japan as part of preparations for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI) to be held in Nairobi later in the month. The trip was funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.