information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
5 Avril 2014
April 5, 2014
The Lower House’s vote to approve pacts that allow for the export of Japanese nuclear technology to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates has some lawmakers concerned.
With the passage of the agreements April 4, which were supported by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, its junior coalition partner New Komeito and the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, it is virtually certain the accords will pass the Upper House before the current session ends in June.
But critics say the failure to establish a system that addresses safety concerns related to the export of the nation’s nuclear technology is sure to propagate another “safety myth.”
During the vote by the Lower House, LDP lawmaker Masatoshi Akimoto, who has called for the abolition of nuclear power generation, and DPJ lawmakers Shoichi Kondo and Yukio Ubukata walked out in protest.
DPJ lawmaker and former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, as well as Japan Restoration Party co-representative Shintaro Ishihara, were absent from the voting. Despite his party’s opposition to the nuclear agreements, Ishihara supports promotion of the industry.
The agreements with Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the first of their kind for the Abe administration, which listed exports of nuclear technology as one of the pillars of the government’s economic growth strategy and part of its efforts to maintain Japan’s edge in nuclear power generation.
In October 2013, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Turkey to promote Japan’s nuclear industry. As a result, a consortium of Japanese companies succeeded in winning an order to construct a nuclear power plant in the country.
So when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Japan in January, Abe assured him that he would seek early passage of a bilateral nuclear pact with Turkey, saying, “We will put top priority on the issue in the ordinary Diet session (of this year).”
As a result of that pledge, the Abe administration terminated deliberations April 2 by a committee on the issue after just five hours. Though some ruling party lawmakers expressed concern over the hasty manner in which the process was done, the administration still put the nuclear pacts with Turkey and the UAE up for a vote in the plenary session of the Lower House on April 4.
When nuclear power technology is exported, the government is obliged to seek guarantees that it will not be diverted to make weapons. Still, it remains unclear how the safety issue is going to be addressed.
In a meeting of the Lower House Committee on Foreign Affairs held April 2, New Komeito lawmaker Mitsunari Okamoto criticized the government, saying, “There is no organization in Japan that shoulders responsibility (for checking the safety of exported nuclear power infrastructure).”
Before the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was in charge of handling safety checks on exported technology.
After the accident, however, NISA was split off from the economy ministry, which had been promoting nuclear power generation, and renamed the Secretariat of the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
The secretariat does not conduct safety inspections or investigations in connection to exported nuclear infrastructure. The economy ministry also has no safety inspection systems in place, either. As a result, no organizations are overseeing safety checks.
In the foreign affairs committee meeting, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida acknowledged the fact, and said, “As the government, we are going to establish a (new) safety examination system.”
Like Japan, Turkey is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. However, Diet deliberations revealed that, in Turkey, the authorities there that regulate the nuclear industry and those that promote it are not completely separate entities. The situation there is like Japan before the Fukushima nuclear accident.
The Abe administration is trying to restart idled nuclear reactors in Japan under what it says are the “strictest safety standards in the world.” At the same time, it is ignoring serious safety concerns in its haste to export the nation’s nuclear power infrastructure and technology.
Akira Kasai, a lawmaker of the Japanese Communist Party, said that the government is exporting “a new safety myth.”
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