"keeping ordinary citizens content about ... nuclear power has become a greater priority than usual"

[kristopher]

Yuriko Koike: Japan’s former Minister of Defense and National Security Adviser, is Chairman of the Executive Council of the Liberal Democratic Party.(LDP)

The LDP is the party that built modern Japan. They held power from shortly after the war until just a couple of years ago. They are behaving very much like the Republicans (which they resemble in economic philosophy) in their willingness to exploit a national disaster for political gain.

They have depended on what has historically been a very competent bureaucracy to be responsible for writing most of the nation's policies - including the country's nuclear policy. Under their leadership Japanese political battles over public opinion had very little effect on the trends of national policy.

This article should be read with an awareness of the struggle between Kan and the bureaucracy; his moves to wrest control of a major policy area from them has even spooked his own party.

Squaring Asia’s Nuclear Triangle

TOKYO – Just before the fourth trilateral summit between Japan, China, and South Korea began on May 21, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan jointly visited the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, offering encouragement to the disaster’s victims living in evacuation centers. Since the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March, Kan has aimed at lifting the bans that many countries have imposed on imports of Japanese agricultural products, and so offered the two heads of state cherries from Fukushima in a bid to highlight their safety.

At the summit, the three countries issued a joint statement outlining cooperation on a wide range of issues, including nuclear safety, disaster prevention, economic growth, and the environment. The lessons learned from Japan’s earthquake and nuclear accident would be shared with China, South Korea, and the wider international community, and, in an addendum, the Japanese authorities promised to “continue to provide information…with the greatest transparency possible.”

In fact, the Kan administration – which loathes the involvement of bureaucrats, who are professionals, in managing public affairs – delayed notifying neighboring countries when it was forced to order the release of water containing low concentrations of radioactive material. For Kan, the real priority was his government’s effort to maintain its grip on power, not reassuring Japan’s neighbors of the actions it was taking to contain a potential threat to their citizens.

...Ever since the Fukushima accident, opposition to nuclear power has been growing in China and South Korea, both of which had been planning a massive expansion of their nuclear generating capacity – and both of which face a change of political leadership next year. China’s succession, though set, will nonetheless bring a period of uncertainty, while South Korea will undoubtedly face its usual no-holds-barred democratic battle in its coming presidential election. Given these political realities, keeping ordinary citizens content about civilian nuclear power has become a greater priority than usual in both countries....

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/koike18/English


Also:

Key players got nuclear ball rolling
Cash paved the way even amid safety doubts on high, ineptitude

OSAKA — How did earthquake-prone Japan, where two atomic bombs were dropped at the end of World War II creating a strong antinuclear weapons culture, come to embrace nuclear power just a few decades later?

Therein lies a tale whose main characters include two former prime ministers, a suspected war criminal, CIA agent and postwar media baron, and "Japan's Charles Lindbergh," a flamboyant pilot who encouraged people to search for uranium in their backyards.

It also involves thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, engineers and the pronuclear media collectively known as Japan's "nuclear power village."

At the same time it's the story of those who opposed nuclear power from the beginning, warning of the potential dangers and arguing for decades that nuclear power wasn't as safe as advertised, and reactors could be seriously damaged by an earthquake.

The saga begins in summer 1953 ...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110716f1.html