In Pursuing Peace, Japan’s Leader Must Also Prepare for War
His life’s goal may be nuclear disarmament, but with this G-7 meeting in Hiroshima, Fumio Kishida will move the nation even closer to the world’s largest nuclear power.
Security concerns are running high.
Photographer: Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images
Taking place in the first city to suffer an atomic bombing, this weekend’s Group of Seven summit has a certain poetry.
The choice of Hiroshima as the venue is more than Japan’s leader, Fumio Kishida, picking his home constituency. The country holds the G-7 presidency just as the eight-decade taboo on the use of nuclear weapons feels closer than ever to being broken due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The prime minister has a lifelong commitment to denuclearization, stating in his 2021 book that “as a Japanese politician from Hiroshima, it is my duty to continue to speak about the inhumanity of nuclear weapons.” He’ll spend much of this weekend promoting their complete elimination.