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Japan nuclear policy after Fukushima 3.11,

public opinion and the nuclear village

29.05.2015
Miriam F.

Japan is the only country which has been wounded by the overwhelming effects of the atomic
weapons in wartime but still decided to endorse the peaceful use of nuclear technology for the
energetic purpose.
The nation's severest crisis since the end of World War II, as former Prime Minister Naoto
Kan's called it, Fukushima's accident, was another crucial event which challenged the nation
to security problems connected to the nuclear power. Nevertheless, there is still no doubt the
predominance of nuclear power in the current Japanese policy.
This paper wants to highlight the combination of domestic and international factors that keep
Japan from making significant changes in the traditional nuclear policy.

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011, the following concern about
nuclear power pushed several countries around the world to embrace a nuclear phase out
policy shift. The immediate response of Germany, for instance, was to shut down 8 of its 17
reactors1 and Italy's earlier plan to generate a quarter of electricity from nuclear power, by
2030, was finally rejected at a referendum in June 20112.
Since serious changes were pursued in countries far away from Fukushima, once could expect
that Japan too would take crucial decision in the nuclear issue up to a gradual phase-out, but
the nuclear policy embraced from the post Fukushima until now tells us a different story.

The emotional response.

Due to Fukushima crisis, Japanese public opinion lost confidence in the safety myth
of nuclear energy and has been more shattered by the later revelations of Tokyo Electric
Power Company's (TEPCO) about their failure to avoid the meltdown although it was
preventable3. The arisen anti-nuclear sentiments pressed government to address the call for a
safer energy plan and so, by May 2012, all of the country's 50 nuclear reactors were shut
down for safety inspections4.
A month later Kan said that Japan had no choice but to reduce its reliance on atomic power 5
and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) set the Energy & Environmental Council (Enecan or
EEC) as a part of the National Policy unit to advice on the country's energy future. However,
the promising green energy policy framework advanced by the council was soon set aside.

The nuclear restart

After its victory in national elections, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) strove to restart
the latent reactors as soon as the inspections would confirm they fit the new safety standard
issued by Nuclear Regulation Authority; by the end of 2012 the new government also
abolished EEC and assigned the energy plan formulation to the Ministry of Economy, Trade
and Industry (METI).
The new 4th Strategic Energy Plan proposed by METI and adopted by the government in April
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2014 has been blamed6 of lack of clarity since it declares that nuclear energy would be
lowered to the extent possible, without mentioning any specific ratio of that extent. At the
same time, nuclear energy is described in the plan as a key base load power source7 and as a
quasi domestic source which allows Japan to safeguard from global energy market turmoils
and to guarantee stability in the energy supply.
As we can see, after four years from Fukushima's disaster, Japan is still far from the
nuclear policy shift expected and some evidence suggest that this condition is hard to change
due to domestic and international factors barriers.

Domestic constraints to a change

Starting from a domestic perspective, we will consider the analysis of the nuclear
village made by Jeff Kingston and the veto players approach of Jacques E. Hymans.
There is a wide set of institutional and individual pro-nuclear advocates, in Japan so called
nuclear village, which, as J.Kingston explains8, overlaps with the Iron triangle of
businesses, bureaucracy and LDP. These players have a huge financial stake in the field of
nuclear choices and have been found responsible for not preventing Fukushima. Today, they
still stand up restraining Japan from a significant shift and getting the country stuck with all
the challenges connected to a nuclear power driven policy.
According to J.Hymans9, the persistence of the traditional Japanese nuclear policy mix is
mainly the product of powerful forces of inertia.The need for agreement across a wide array
of domestic veto players has posed a serious obstacle to major policy shifts, either toward
nuclear weapons or toward the abandonment of the plutonium economy ambition.
As observed, constraints to a nuclear policy shift are considerable also in the opposite
perspective of Japan becoming a nuclear weapons state.

The international perspective

Japanese three non-nuclear principles, formally adopted in 1971, state that Japan shall
neither possess nor manufacture nuclear weapons, nor shall it permit their introduction into
Japanese territory. At the same time, Japan is the only state-party in the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty which, although being a non-nuclear weapon state, possesses full-
scale nuclear fuel cycle facilities.
In other words, Japan is internationally allowed to enrich uranium, extract plutonium and
reprocess it if it is done for energy generation purpose. However, this process is made by
dual-use nuclear technologies that gives Japan the technologies and scientific expertise to
develop nuclear weapons very quickly, which consequently generate global concern.
As LDP general secretary Ishiba Shigeru claimed, Having nuclear plants shows to other
nations that Japan can make nuclear weapons.10 , the controversy weave together nuclear
energy policy and nuclear weapon capability.
The shut down of reactors, would force Japan to justify its large plutonium stockpile to the
world since the energetic purpose would vanish. Furthermore, we can find another constraint
in terms of international relations, in the US alliance. As Kingston puts it, Washington warned
Tokyo that phasing out nuclear energy would harm bilateral relations because it would rise
concerns about Japan large stockpiles of plutonium and uncomfortable questions about the
consistency of US nuclear non-proliferation efforts targeting Iran and North Korea.
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Conclusion

There have been crucial events that could have led Japan to a shift in the nuclear
policy, but neither the Fukushima's crisis, nor the nuclear tests carried on by North Korea in
2006 and 2009 led Japan to relevant policy shifts.
In the first case we could expect a nuclear phase out that has been immediately prevented by
domestic actors and to a certain extent by international pressure.
With regard to the international security needs, due to the growing regional concerns over
China and North Korea we could expect a Japanese decision to develop its own nuclear
arsenal. However, Japan faith in US Alliance and in its nuclear security umbrella had a great
role in the country's anti-nuclear weapon stance.
The combination of all these factors let us better understand the reasons why Japan's nuclear
policy has been so inflexible until now.
Since the domestic constraints persisted unchanged at those shocking events, the only variable
that could lead us to reasonably suppose a change in nuclear stance of Japan is the US
alliance. A strong fear of abandonment from USA protection or a clear change in the
conditions of that bilateral relation could shift Japan's ground and aim to develop its own
nuclear arsenal, despite the public opposition.
Some concerns could come from the recent reinterpretation of the Constitution's article 9
about Japan right of maintaining an army and the country's military role.
According to A.Gordon, like Abe's LDP, the Restoration party [] members were even more
supportive of a strong military.Many wanted Japan to obtain nuclear weapons11.
, as someone could have been concerned by the controversial rejection 12 of the three non-
nuclear principles by the man who stated them, former Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize
winner Eisaku Sato.

1.Nuclear power in Germany, World Nuclear Association: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-

Profiles/Countries-G-N/Germany/
2.Nuclear power in Italy, World Nuclear Association: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-
Profiles/Countries-G-N/Italy/
3.The Associated Press, TEPCO agrees nuclear crisis was avoidable, The Asahi Shimbun (website) updated
October 13, 2012, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201210130016
4.David Batty, Japan shuts down last working nuclear reactor, The Guardian (website) updated May 5, 2012,
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/05/japan-shuts-down-last-nuclear-reactor
5.Linda Sieg, UPDATE 2-Japan PM says must reduce dependence on nuclear power, Reuters (website)
updated July12,2011, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/12/japan-nuclear-kan-
idUSL3E7IC0EN20110712
6.Jacques E.C. Hymans, Veto players and Japanese Nuclear Policy after Fukushima, draft available at
http://daxter.matrix.msu.edu/system/files/contributed-files/hymans-pfj-final-h-energy.pdf
7. METI, Strategic Energy Plan , April 2014, available at
http://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/en/category/others/basic_plan/pdf/4th_strategic_energy_plan.pdf
8.Jeff Kingston, Japan's nuclear village, in Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan, 107-119, ed. J.Kingston
(Routledge, 2014).
9.Jacques E.C. Hymans, Veto players, Nuclear Energy, and Nonproliferation:Domestic Institutional Barriers to
a Japanese Bomb, International Security 36(2),154-189, Fall 2011
10.Yuri Kageyama, Japan pro-bomb voices grow louder amid nuke debate, Jakarta Post (website) updated
July 31, 2012, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/07/31/japan-pro-bomb-voices-grow-louder-amid-nuke-
debate.html
11.Andrew Gordon, Shock, Disaster and Aftermath, Japan since 2008 , in A Modern History of Japan, 350-
351 , 3rd edition (Oxford University Press, 2013)
12.Kyodo, Peace Prize winner Sato called nonnuclear policy 'nonsense', The Japan Times (website) updated
June 11, 2000 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2000/06/11/national/peace-prize-winner-sato-called-
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