Japan's Post-Fukushima Future

TSUNAMI JAPAN’S POST-FUKUSHIMA FUTURE ESSAYS ON THE MANY AFTERSHOCKS OF JAPAN’S NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE. EDITED BY JEFF KINGSTON foreign foreignpolicy • policyTsunami: •Tsunami: Japan’s Japan’sposT-fukushima posT-fukushima fuTure f •u TLOOKINGure OUT © 2011 Foreign Policy Published by the Slate Group, a division of The Washington Post Company www.foreignpolicy.com foreign policyforeign • Tsunami:policy •Tsunami: Japan’s pJapan’sosT-fukushima posT-fukushima fuTure f•u WHATTure WE SAW TSUNAMI: JAPan’S POST- FUKUSHIMA FUTURE ESSAYS ON THE MANY AFTERSHOCKS OF JAPan’S NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE Edited by Jeff Kingston With proceeds going to the Japan Society for tsunami relief I foreign policy • Tsunami: Japan’s posT-fukushima fuTure “For the 20 years before this great earthquake disaster, our nation has seemed, in many ways, to be at an impasse. As we overcome the crisis created by this disaster, we must also overcome the preceding crisis, what could be called Japan’s structural crisis.” — Naoto Kan Copy-edited by Diane Lazarus and Ellen Ryan Produced by Susan Glasser and Britt Peterson Designed by Dennis Brack, Erin Aulov, and Claire Linden II foreignforeign policypolicy ••Tsunami: Tsunami: Japan’sJapan’s ppososTT--ffukushimaukushima ffuuTTureure Introduction by Jeff Kingston 1 Chapter 1 What We Saw: Tales From the Hot Zone March 11, 2011: Stones in Spring by Mariko Nagai 10 Marry Me by Kaori Shoji 17 Driving Away From a Tsunami by Steve Corbett 22 The View From Tokyo by Robert Whiting 34 Bending Misfortune by Shijuro Ogata 46 Train to Nowhere by Kumiko Makihara 54 Chapter 2 Japan’s Quakes, Past and Future Remembering the Future by David McNeill 62 III foreign policy ••Tsunami: Tsunami: Japan’sJapan’s ppososTT--ffukushimaukushima ffuuTTureure Building on Fault Lines by Gregory Smits 67 Chapter 3 Looking Out on the World Leaks in All the Wrong Places by Christian Caryl 90 Japan and New York: Celebrities, the Internet and Genuine Emotion by Devin Stewart 93 NGOs and Volunteers: Responding to Japan’s Disaster by Jeff Kingston 101 “But Is It Not in Fact Leaking a Little?” by Noriko Murai 110 Chapter 4 The Economic Future: Can Japan Turn Crisis Into Opportunity? Look Past Old Habits by David Pilling 125 Shake Out of Stagnation by Bill Emmott 139 Break Free of the Familiar by Brad Glosserman 147 IV foreignforeign policypolicy ••Tsunami: Tsunami: Japan’sJapan’s ppososTT--ffukushimaukushima ffuuTTureure Chapter 5 The Political Future: Who Will Benefit From Disaster? Everyone but Naoto Kan by Rod Armstrong 159 Rebuilding: Lessons From Aceh by Jun Honna 176 Chapter 6 The Nuclear Future: New Questions Could the Meltdown Have Been Avoided? by Lawrence Repeta 183 How American Nuclear Reactors Failed Japan by Andrew Horvat 195 Can TEPCO Survive? by Paul J. Scalise 204 Moving Out of the “Nuclear Village” by Andrew DeWit and Masaru Kaneko 213 Why a Nukes-Free Future Is a False Dream by Robert Dujarric 224 Building the Next Fukushimas by Gavan McCormack 230 V foreign policy • Tsunami: Japan’s posT-fukushima fuTure INTRODUCTION By JeffK ingston On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m., a gargantuan, magnitude-9 earthquake rattled Japan’s main island of Honshu, the strongest temblor to hit the nation in recorded history. The resulting tsunami, as high as 38 meters in places (imagine a 12-story building bearing down), pulverized the north- eastern coast of Honshu. Entire towns and villages were transformed into twisted mounds of waterlogged rubble and communities were obliterated. Walking around some of these stricken areas brought to mind photos of Hiroshima 1945; here and there a battered concrete structure poked out of a suddenly flattened, devastated landscape. In Fukushima, the tsunami reached some 15 meters, inundating the now infamous Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex. The ensuing nuclear crisis eventually forced the evacuation of 80,000 residents within a 20-kilometer radius, subsequently expanded to include other hot zones beyond the arc, and raised important questions about Japan’s plans to expand nuclear power to some 50 percent of its electricity-generating capacity by 2030. As I write this in early June, more than 100,000 people remain in evacuation centers living in grim and crowded conditions with little hope and no privacy. So many evacuees are traumatized by the loss of family and everything they have accumulated over their lives that it remains to be seen whether they have the emotional, economic and physical resources to overcome this tragedy and to what extent the government and civil society groups can help them do so. The citizens of these pulverized towns face uncertain prospects and a road to recovery that could last a decade or 1 foreign policy • Tsunami: Japan’s posT-fukushima fuTure more. This is also the path that Japan finds itself on. Confronted with tough questions about its dependence on nuclear power, about the competence of its leaders both in the private and public sectors, about the economy’s abil- ity to rebound from a shock, the country has been plunged into crisis. After centuries of earthquakes, tsunamis, war, and a long list of other disasters, natural and unnatural, the Japanese people are accustomed to building back stronger — but how do they recover from such a devastating blow, and what will that new future look like? This unique ebook, the first to respond to the quake in such depth, as- sembles some of the top writers and scholars working in Japan today to an- swer these questions: How will Japan rebuild, and what lessons must it learn from its past? Our contributors range from such prominent journalists as Financial Times Asia-Pacific editor David Pilling, who writes that “This sense that Japan has, many times before, confronted and overcome crisis is a powerful national talisman” to former Economist editor Bill Emmott to best-selling author Robert Whiting, known for his books on the yakuza and Japanese baseball. Prize-winning poet Mariko Nagai has written a powerful short story on the historical recurrence of tsunamis in Japan that addresses the emotional impact as well as the geological. Steven Corbett’s first-person account of fleeing the waves gives a visceral connection to the events. And in a complex and smart section on energy, authors Gavin McCormack, Robert Dujarric, Andrew DeWit and Masaru Kaneko, among others, debate Japan’s nuclear future, and whether it has one. Proceeds from this book will be donated to the Japan Society of New York, which will distribute the money to various charities in Japan it has been working with since 3/11. Our goal in compiling this collection is to offer a real-time look at an immensely significant world event and to spark a global conversation about a shock whose reverberations will be felt for years. The essays reveal above all the hazards of forgetting history — and in the case of Japan and natural disaster, it is certainly doomed to be repeated. *** Three months after the quake, it’s already clear what some of the -im mediate ramifications will be. The economic consequences will be massive 2 foreign policy • Tsunami: Japan’s posT-fukushima fuTure and extended, with estimated overall costs of recovery ranging from Y25 trillion ($309 billion), about 3 percent of gross domestic product, to an eye- popping $500 billion, dwarfing the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake (Kobe) figure of about Y10 trillion. The government passed a Y4-trillion emergency relief budget and another is in the works. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) faces claims amounting to an estimated Y11 trillion, prompting the Japanese government to provide backing in order to avoid bankruptcy. For fiscal 2010-2011 (April through March), TEPCO posted a loss of Y1.25 trillion ($15.3 billion), the biggest loss by a nonfinancial firm in Japan’s history. The Finance Ministry estimates that quake claims covered by insur- ance companies will be 12 times the Y78 billion paid out following the Kobe earthquake. Although Japan already has the highest public debt-to-GDP ra- tio in the world (200+ percent), market analysts are confident that Japan can fund the recovery, although ratings agencies have warned of downgrading and criticize inaction on raising revenues to fund the recovery packages. Nobody was that surprised that GDP contracted by an annualized 3.5 percent in the first quarter of 2011. Forecasts vary, however, about how fast the economy will rebound in the second half of 2011 with optimists project- ing 1 percent growth for the year and close to 3 percent for 2012. Govern- ment emergency recovery spending is expected to boost GDP, but fears of electricity shortages and continued supply bottlenecks raise concerns about cuts in production and exports that might constrain growth significantly. So will the government turn the disaster into an opportunity? Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) has been embattled since the disaster. But his handling of the immediate aftermath was relative- ly adept, widespread criticism notwithstanding. On the eve of the tsunami, Kan was on the ropes and headed for the exits as scandals battered his ad- ministration and he plunged in public opinion polls. As soon as the quake hit, however, and in contrast to the Kobe earthquake when the government was paralyzed, Kan immediately mobilized 100,000 troops and accepted international offers of assistance. Tsunami disaster relief has been reason- ably fast and effective under difficult circumstances. Opposition politicians criticized the government for not meeting its target of building 30,000 tem- porary houses for evacuees by June, but it managed to build 27,200 units in 10 weeks, an impressive performance given shortages of building materials, 3 foreign policy • Tsunami: Japan’s posT-fukushima fuTure difficulty in finding suitable sites and damage to infrastructure and trans- port networks.

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