JAPAN: Japan has ended a decades-old taboo by allowing the United States to station permanently a nuclear-powered ship in its waters.
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier will replace the ageing turbine-powered Kitty Hawk, currently based in Yokosuka, about 40 miles south of Tokyo.
Tokyo's senior spokesman, Hiroyuki Hosoda, said his government "believes that the continued presence of the US navy . . . will contribute to Japan's safety and . . . stability in the Far East".
The US navy said the new carrier was necessary for the security environment in the western Pacific region and would fulfil the US government's commitment to the defence of Japan.
But the announcement, on the 60th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and just days after Tokyo agreed to host a new US heliport in its southern province of Okinawa, has angered Japanese pacifists.
"We absolutely condemn this. The government is using peaceful rhetoric to build up militarism and cater to the US presence," said local councillor Ayako Nishimura. "It is a frightening development."
Local prefecture governor Shigefumi Matsuzawa said he would never understand the decision.
The news comes as Japan prepares for the most far-reaching constitutional changes in its postwar history, which will see it drop its traditional pacifist stance.
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which is currently drafting revisions, said yesterday that Japan should play a greater role in global security and strive to develop "normal" military capabilities.
Many Japanese support constitutional revision, but two-thirds oppose changing the pacifist Article Nine.
The latest developments are likely to further damage relations with Japan's Asian neighbours, which have been strained to breaking point by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the controversial Yasukuni shrine war memorial.
China, in particular, views with alarm Japan's deepening links with Washington and is building up a formidable military machine to deal with what it considers a growing threat.
As America's staunchest ally in the Pacific, Japan has hosted US nuclear-powered ships hundreds of times.
But the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have until recently made any discussion of allowing these ships to dock permanently in Japanese ports politically taboo.
The nuclear-powered visitors have never been popular in this still strongly pacifist country, and both governments sought yesterday to play down public fears over the development.
US ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said: "We want to assure all concerned that this carrier can and will be operated safely in Japanese waters."
In addition, Mr Hosoda claimed the carrier would stop its nuclear reactor while in Japanese waters and conduct repairs elsewhere.
Many observers suspect Tokyo has rushed to accommodate long-standing Washington demands in Okinawa and Yokosuka ahead of next month's visit to Japan by president George Bush.
"Japan's acceptance of the US proposal to home-port the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Yokosuka is one of numerous recent examples of Japanese subordination to US regional and global military plans," said Mark Selden, senior lecturer in the east Asia programme at Cornell University.
"Together with recent proposals to develop nuclear power, it signals a full-scale attack on Japan's non-nuclear policies".