聽力原文:

Banyan
菩提專欄
Of blowhards and bombs
吹牛皮和造核彈（二）
Some are also motivated by a sense that South Korea has been harshly constrained under the NPT regime compared with Japan, the only one of 185 non-nuclear-armed parties to the NPT with complete fuel-cycle technologies, including both uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing. So Mr Fitzpatrick suggests that Japan may have the shortest “breakout” time to build a bomb, albeit longer than the common Western estimate of six months. Some Japanese hawks do advocate Japan’s going nuclear. On April 1st the cabinet reconfirmed that this would not violate Japan’s constitution. Seeing such hints, and suspicious of moves by Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, to ease legal constraints on Japan’s armed forces, some in South Korea and China fear that Japan may soon abandon its anti-nuclear principles.

重點詞匯：

1 motivate （就所說的話）給出理由；說明…的原因
2 harsh 殘酷的；嚴酷的；嚴厲的
3 constrained 不自然的；強迫的；過于受約束的
4 uranium 鈾（放射性化學元素）
5 enrichment豐富; 改進; 肥沃; 濃縮;
6 plutonium [化]钚;
7 hawk 鷹派分子；主戰分子
8 hint征兆；跡象

聽力原文:

It won’t. Like South Korea, Japan has too much to lose. And unlike South Korea, its voters would also strongly disapprove. The country of Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not want to become a nuclear power. At the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC on April 1st, it was praised as one of America’s closest allies in the effort to minimise the use of sensitive nuclear materials. Thanks partly to the shortness of its breakout time, Japan would not be the first nuclear domino.

重點詞匯：

1 Hiroshima廣島
2 Nagasaki長崎
3 domino 多米諾

聽力原文:

Nor, probably, would Taiwan, though it faces an even more explicit threat, since China claims the right to use force to “reunify” the island with the mainland in certain circumstances—such as its declaring formal independence. China’s military build-up in recent years calls into question Taiwan’s ability to defend itself by conventional means. And, unlike Japan and South Korea, Taiwan has no clear guarantee that America would come to its defence. Rather, the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 leaves America’s security commitment vague. But even under the traditionally pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party of the incoming president, Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan is not likely to pursue nuclear weapons. It would be suicidal.

重點詞匯：

1 reunify 重新統一
2 Taiwan Relations Act 臺灣關系法
3 vague 不清楚的，含糊的，不明確的，模糊的
4 suicidal想自殺的；有自殺傾向的
5 Democratic Progressive Party 民進黨

聽力原文:

The reason South Korea, Japan and Taiwan remain “latent” nuclear powers is that in the past they have all pursued the necessary technologies, but then renounced them. Nobosuke Kishi, Mr Abe’s grandfather and his political hero, who was prime minister in 1957-60, believed that Japan needed the bomb. Under Park Chung-hee, South Korea’s president in 1963-79, and father of the incumbent, Park Geun-hye, South Korea had a clandestine nuclear programme. So did Taiwan under Chiang Ching-kuo.

重點詞匯：

1 latent 潛在的；潛伏的；隱藏的
2 renounce 聲明放棄；宣布放棄
3 clandestine 暗中從事的；保密的；秘密的

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