Japan has finally helped in weakening the anti-nuclear regime and its campaign as people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki dismayed over lifting a 34-years ban on nuclear deal with India by the 45-member Vienna-based Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), working under the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), on September 6. The decision has allowed India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to start trading nuclear technology for civilian nuclear purposes with the NSG members including Japan, once the top spokesman of anti-nuclear campaign. Japan, being one of the notable members of the NSG, has approved the deal at Vienna. NSG banned nuclear trade with India as it conducted a nuclear blast in 1974. It seems that the NSG's decision put a nail in its own coffin as a nuclear supplier watchdog. Public sentiments ran counter to government decision as people worried more about the 'bombs' than 'energy'. They believe that India would use this so-called waivers not only for energy purposes but it might use such an extraordinarily and especially one-time waiver for its military build-up, political manoeuvring in world affairs, and for commercial purposes. They fear that the NSG's decision would likely prompt North Korea, Iran, and others to seek the same treatment by interpreting the deal to their advantage. September 6 was an extremely bad day for the peace loving people of Japan. For many, from Hiroshima bombing to Vienna decision, it was a zero-sum game at the final analysis as nothing could be achieved except sorrows and grieves, remembering that Japan was the only nation that experienced deadly inhuman nuclear bombs that made an end to World War II. It seems that ever since the signing of the US-India nuclear deal in 2005, the Japanese government has not been listening to the public outcry. Leaders at Hiroshima and Nagasaki condemned the government's action of allowing India to trade with the NSG in technology and material. The Mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, and Governor of Nagasaki, Genjiro Kaneko, expressed disappointment over the NSG's decision. In a statement Akiba stated that "it is clear that this will make the NPT a dead letter and will become a huge obstacle for the future efforts toward a complete abolition of nuclear weapons." Kaneko termed the decision as "very disappointing" affecting the non-proliferation regime. A common perception that has emerged in Japan was that the NSG's decision would further undermine the future non-proliferation efforts. A leading Japanese daily Mainichi in its editorial criticised the Japanese support to the NSG's allowing nuclear trade with India somewhat as "double-standard" and "hard to understand." The paper added that "Japan has helped to weaken the NPT regime." The top selling Japanese daily Yomiuri called the decision as a "bad precedent for nuclear non-proliferation." Another daily Asahi expressed that "the deal would erode the foundation of the NPT regime" and termed the decision somewhat as "a historic mistake." Ironically, Japanese Government Chief Cabinet Secretary, Nobutaka Machimura, defended the decision only on the ground that it would "help fight the global warming." "It would be a tool to prevent the emission of a huge volume of greenhouse gas as this emerging country [India] of a billion people continues its rapid growth," he went on to defend his government decision. He, however, could not answer as to how arms race should be reduced in the Indian subcontinent and in Asia. Showing that Japan still has concerns about the decision, does not make a sense because the decision has already been taken along with the Japanese government's approval. Such concerns are just lip-services. It is also a foolish thinking that India would join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) because India got recognition without signing any of anti-nuclear treaty. Unlike Japan, Australia has changed its position. The Rudd administration overturned the decision of the previous Howard Conservative government to sell uranium to India by taking the puritanical stance that Australia cannot sell uranium to a country which has refused to sign the NPT. Interestingly, the process under which Australia reversed its decision was in fact initiated by Japan. Australia implemented the process, while Japan left out of that. Probably, Japan is now thinking out of the box and start believing in real politics instead of morally supporting the non-nuclear regime at a point when world security has much changed. The decision is based on changing realities in Asia. Many in Japan have also been trying to reveal the fact that decades ago a US military ship brought nuclear weapons into Japan during the Vietnam War. The fact started cracking down when a part of secret was unearthed recently regarding a US$4 million payment by the Japanese government to the United States for the reversion of the Okinawa Island to Japan in 1972. This event and the present decision at the NSG meeting indicated complexities and unfair play of Japan's nuclear policy. The writer is a research fellow (East Asia) at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).