Yasuhiro Asaeda visits the Hiroshima Peace Memorial every year on the anniversary of the bombing; he was 11 months old when the United States dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan.
His hope is that the tragedy will not be repeated. On the 75th anniversary of the bombing, a survivor told The Associated Press: "If the world could be peaceful, that would be the best."
For instance, amid the worst military tensions between China and Taiwan in 40 years, some observers have questioned whether Taiwan will be the next country to be invaded by Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
Since 2020, China has increased the number of military aircraft it sends into Taiwan's air defense identification zone in an effort to express displeasure and maintain the fighter fleet on the island under stress.
This zone extends beyond Taiwan's airspace and encompasses a larger area that Taiwan continuously scans for dangers.
According to the database of Agence France-Presse, Taiwan reported 465 incursions by Chinese aircraft from January to May of this year, an increase of about 50% from the same period last year.
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait and other East Asian problems, such as North Korea's nuclear threat and tense relations between Beijing and Tokyo and Beijing and Seoul, have also been affected by the superpower rivalry between the US and China.
The Ukrainian conflict's "take-home lesson to some Japanese politicians (is) that a nuclear deterrent may be an important way to push back against not only North Korea ... but also push back against what the Japanese understand is the sort of Chinese behavior in the East China Sea, South China Sea and across the Taiwan Strait", Stephen Nagy said, senior associate professor in the department of politics and international studies at the International Christian University in Tokyo.
Northeast of Taiwan, in the East China Sea, is a group of islands that both China and Japan claim. The Chinese refer to them as Diaoyu, while the Japanese refer to them as Senkaku. Rival claims to the South China Sea are made by China and numerous other nations.
The "serious challenge" China has posed to Japan in the Senkaku/Diaoyu issue, according to Yasuhiro Matsuda of the University of Tokyo's Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, is another factor in Japan's "very sour" relations with China over the past two decades.
