Since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Japan has lost a significant proportion of its power generation capacity.   Not only is the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant out of commission, but numerous reactors are also off-line due either to damage sustained during the tremor or to shutdowns resulting from heightened concerns about the safety of atomic electricity. The Kanto plain, where around 35 million Japanese live in a mega-metropolis centered on Tokyo, and perhaps other regions of the country, will face power shortages in the summer as higher temperatures increase air conditioning-induced energy demand.

A tsunami warning has been issued for coastal regions of Japan following a magnitude 6.7 earthquake that struck the north of the country at 6.56 a.m local time.

Protests are nothing new in Japan — as early as the 17th century, peasants protested against the shogunate and the feudal system it upheld. Yet despite such a history, modern Japanese aren’t known for taking to the streets in anger. This isn’t to say that protests don’t occur — demonstrations have taken place in recent years over Sino-Japanese relations and the presence of US airbases. But the gatherings have tended to attract little attention outside the region.

Recently, though, a string of anti-nuclear demonstrations sparked by the Fukushima crisis has been making headlines overseas as writers speculate over the global implications of Japan’s disaster.     

One of the first gatherings occurred on March 27, with around 1,200 people demonstrating in front of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s headquarters in Tokyo’s Chiyoda-ku. There were then at least two notable gatherings in April, one that took place in Koenji on April 10, and another that took place in front of TEPCO’s headquarters again on April 26, marking the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. On May 7, there was a gathering of anti-nuclear protesters in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, while just last Saturday, in neighbouring Shinjuku-ku, a collection of several rallies morphed into a crowd that some estimated at more than 20,000 people — a sizeable number for Japan.

One of the organizers of the Shinjuku protest, Hajime Matsumoto, couldn't believe the number of people who showed up. Matsumoto runs a thrift shop called Shiroto no Ran, or Amateur Revolt, through which he has attained a following amongst the vibrant community of artists and activists in Koenji. This relationship between art and activism in Japan appears to be very close, and is one of the interesting facets of Japanese protest culture. ‘Illcommonz’ is another individual who highlights this relationship, having recently held an exhibition featuring items from popular culture dealing with nuclear technology.

The ties between art and activism may have been born out of necessity. In a nation that stresses conformity, a burgeoning yet naturally nonconformist activity such as protest would need to be sheltered from the social pressures against it. Artists and punk musicians form a perfect enclave within which activists can thrive, much like the beatniks and hippies did for anti-war protests in the United States.

The flipside of this is that the anti-nuclear protests have so far resembled bohemian carnivals rather than what many in the West would describe as genuine protests, with an eclectic melange of clowns, musicians, and street performers interspersed amongst pedestrians,  leading to satirical articles such as this one from Vice.

All this means that it’s unlikely that the anti-nuclear protests mark a real embrace of demonstrations, and the protests certainly lack the anger and revolutionary mind-set that have made the Arab Spring demonstrations successful. Still, the relatively large turnout of people drawn from different demographics at these anti-nuclear protests is unprecedented, and represents something new – even if it isn’t revolutionary.

The YouTube footage of an earless rabbit that I mentioned last week has been verified by the Jana Press, who have also uploaded their own footage of the rabbit. According to Jana, the rabbit was born in Namie City, just outside the 30 kilometre exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The rabbit belongs to Yuko Sugimoto, 56, who found it ‘born without ears on May 7.’ As indicated in the previous post, one other explanation for a rabbit being earless is overzealous grooming on the part of its mother; but this explanation is discounted at the beginning of Jana's video, as two individuals indicate that the ears do not appear to have been cut off. Interestingly, the rabbit also appears to have albinism (white coat, red eyes) which is actually caused by a mutation in several genes.

Two key facts have been verified by Jana's publication of the video: 1) that the rabbit was born in the town of Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, and 2) that the rabbit was born after the cascade of failures at Fukushima Daiichi. Coincidentally, Namie is the same town where on May 6, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technologydetected 1,500 becquerels of radioactive strontium per kilogram in soil samples, and where back in March, an International Atomic Energy Agency team detected radiation levels of 161 μSv/hour. The Jana footage also provides radiation readings from a personal dosimeter; this dosimeter, in one shot, shows background radiation in the rabbit pen at 3.5 μSv/hour. While this is far lower than levels previously detected, 3.5 μSv/hour equates to almost 31 mSv/year, exceeding the ICRP’s recommended limits. To further compare: according the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the worldwide annual natural radiation dose per individual is 2.4 mSv/year, or 0.27 μSv/hour.

It should be noted that despite the figures cited above, there’s no definitive evidence that fallout from Fukushima Daiichi caused the rabbit's earlessness. Also, although the earless rabbit was born in Namie, which appears to be something of a radioactive hot zone, the truth is that the genetic mutation could be explained by natural, background radiation, or even simply as a fluke of nature. Still, it’s a confirmed and uncomfortable reminder from a government on the ropes of the potential radiation-related problems to come.

Last month, Hiroko Tabuchi, a Tokyo-based reporter for The New York Times, tweeted a translated summary of a letter she had received from Tomoko Hatsuzawa, a Fukushima mother. In the letter, Hatsuzawa indicates she lives 60 kilometres from Fukushima Daiichi, which is about double the distance from the stricken nuclear plant that most of the media has been focusing on, and triple the 20 kilometre mandatory evacuation zone set by the government.

In her letter, Hatsuzawa laments the government’s inaction. ‘They tell us to stay put. They tell our kids to put on masks and hats and keep going to school.’ Tabuchi translates. Hatsuzawa goes on to express her regret and frustration with not realizing the dangers posed by the nuclear plant sooner. Finally, she pleads to the international community to speak out against the Japanese government, to pressure them into action.

Hatsuzawa isn’t alone in noting the lack of forward movement – a recent article in The Daily Yomiuri indicates that 55 percent of donations aren’t reaching March 11 survivors.

There was, of course, some movement on the political front last week. It’s hard to imagine, though, that it was the kind of action most Japanese were hoping for. As discussed by Robert Pekkanen here, Prime Minister Naoto Kan survived a no-confidence vote in the Diet's lower house, but only by promising to step down after settling the current crisis.

As several commentators have noted, it’s a Pyrrhic victory. Kan has bought himself some time, but at the cost of his own premiership. At first glance, this may seem better than the alternatives. After all, had the vote of no-confidence passed, either Kan and his Cabinet would have had to resign, causing a split within the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, or else Kan would have had to dissolve parliament, which would have prompted a general election. Because the Diet has a backlog of legislation for rebuilding measures, either outcome would have been delayed by several weeks.

But what’s so troubling in all this is that the opposition has justified the no-confidence motion as reflecting their concern over Kan’s handling of the post-crisis situation. Yet it’s hard to believe that engaging in such posturing in the midst of recovery efforts is really in the nation’s best interests. It’s true that one of the criticisms of the government’s disaster response is that it has been sluggish, strangled by red tape. So why trigger a potentially massive political restructuring process in the middle of the crisis?

And then there are the opportunists within Kan’s own party. First there’s Ichiro Ozawa, dubbed the ‘Shadow Shogun’ because of his behind the scenes influence within the party. Ozawa, too, threw his weight behind the no-confidence vote, and as noted by Pekkanen, there’s some bad blood between Kan and Ozawa after Kan reproached Ozawa last year.

Ozawa’s Machiavellian shrewdness has apparently been dulled by funding scandals, prompting The Economist to label him an ‘ineffectual bully.’ But even setting these scandals aside, Ozawa’s behaviour last week looked more like that of a petulant child than the actions of a man who really has the nation’s best interests at heart.

And there’s also former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who was forced to resign last year after digging himself into a hole with his backtracking and false promises. Certainly, there’s an argument that Kan could have been better prepared and responded more decisively to the earthquake and tsunami aftermath. But it’s odd that Hatoyama has seemed so influential with his deal to back Kan if the latter eventually steps down in light of his own ineptness.

Setting aside the fact that the prime ministerial revolving door discredits Japan’s political system, it’s simply unacceptable that lawmakers are concerning themselves with power struggles and infighting while the pleas of people like Ms. Hatsuzawa go unheard.

Japan’s politicians are looking increasingly detached from the trials and tribulations of the people they are meant to lead.

The most dramatic political developments of the year so far in Japan are related. They not only say something about the continuing troubles bedevilling Japan’s political system, but also raise serious questions about the ability of the country’s leadership to solve the problems facing the nation.

First, there has been the political response to the March 11 triple disaster of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis. The Japanese public has been dissatisfied with the government response to the disasters, something underscored by a Pew survey taken in April that found only 20 percent of Japanese believed Prime Minister Naoto Kan or the government had responded well to the crisis. Cabinet support levels, meanwhile, hovered in the 20 percent range from February through May.

Why the dissatisfaction? Problems have included slow delivery of supplies to affected areas, inadequate temporary housing for evacuees, and the predicted inadequate supply of electric power for Tokyo in the hot summer months. From the start, the Japanese public was sceptical of the government’s ability to provide timely and accurate information about the extent of the nuclear disaster. And, although it seems clear that the government was constrained in its ability to get information from TEPCO -- the giant utility running the Fukushima plant -- the public still expected its government to have answers at a time when uncertainty about public safety was at its peak. Despite these problems, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano became a popular figure through his frequent televised briefings in work overalls, during which he spoke to the public in measured and reassuring tones.

Early last month, the government put forth a supplemental budget of about 4 trillion yen to spur relief and recovery in the region. Around 100,000 Self-Defence Force (SDF) personnel were mobilized for relief, supplemented by a huge number of civil society volunteers, as well as the US military. Still, opposition parties have been relentlessly critical of the government’s emergency response and relief efforts.

Kan’s popularity has fallen in part due to his perceived poor handling of the crises, which left him vulnerable to the political manoeuvring surrounding the second major political event -- the June 2 no-confidence motion.

The leading opposition parties, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Your Party (YP) and Komeito (CGP) sponsored the motion.  Perhaps surprisingly, the motion also drew support from many legislators within the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, most prominently power broker and long-time Kan rival Ichiro Ozawa and former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

Kan’s attack’s on Ozawa in the second half of 2010 had brought his cabinet popularity, but led to bad blood between Ozawa and Kan, even as Ozawa remained a powerful figure within the party. Kan and Hatoyama apparently struck a deal in last minute negotiations under which Kan would step down after setting the course for recovery in exchange for Hatoyama’s support against the no-confidence motion.

Party leaders had threatened any dissident lawmakers with expulsion from the party (raising the spectre of party split), so once Hatoyama’s about face made clear the motion wouldn’t pass, momentum within the party quickly unravelled and the final vote was one-sided (293-152).

There’s no doubt that Kan personally, and the DPJ as a whole, have been damaged by the flap. Although initial public reaction to the deal was favourable (the Kan cabinet approval rate climbed to 33 percent, although a majority also approved of Kan’s decision to quit), this has still been an unusual chain of events given that no election is in the offing until 2013.

As a result of all this, questions remain over how Kan will perform as a lame duck, when he or others will decide that the vague criteria of ‘the work being done’ are satisfied, and who will succeed him. Kan has only been prime minister for a year, although that makes him long serving by recent standards. Media reports put the front-runner to succeed Kan ahead of the next House of Representatives poll as Seiji Maehara (who has a history of quitting posts when confronted with scandals).

And, of course, while speculation over all these political manoeuvrings rumbles on, serious policy problems remain, including the clean-up of Fukushima, Japan’s energy policy, the recovery of Tohoku, and raising the consumption tax to balance Japan’s parlous finances.

Robert Pekkanen is an Associate Professor at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

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The Japanese Self-Defence Force (SDF), and in particular the Ground Self-Defence Force (GSDF), has been making headlines in the past few months for its brave and relentless relief efforts in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake in March.

It’s unquestionable that as this tragic situation continues to unfold in Japan, one of the few bright spots has been the dramatic improvement in Japanese perceptions of the SDF. Unfortunately, these recent developments may also be overshadowing the struggles that have been taking place within the largest branch of Japan's military over the past several years.

Japan's unique constitutional constraints on the use of military force imply that, unlike the land-component of most nations’ armed forces, the GSDF was inherently defensive: its main mission is to protect Japanese territory from any external security threats. Yet with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the primary security threat that the GSDF was meant to deal with vanished, and no clear threat to Japanese territory has materialized since.

The main challenge that has emerged since the end of the Cold War is the build-up in Chinese naval capabilities, which has called for an increased role to be played by the Marine Self-Defence Forces (MSDF) and Air Self-Defence Forces (ASDF), and to a certain extent the Japan Coast Guard. Indeed, the Japanese government at one point considered the threat to Japanese soil so low that preparing for a threat to the homeland (aside from contested islands) had its importance downgraded as an objective for the SDF in 2004.

As a result, the GSDF has in many ways been the branch of the military most affected by Japan's implementation of fiscal austerity measures. The only personnel cuts that have occurred in the past 20 years have occurred in the GSDF, which was reduced from 154,000 personnel in 1996 to 148,000 in 2004, and more recently to 147,000 in 2010. The number of tanks and howitzers in the GSDF arsenal, as laid out by the National Defence Programme Guidelines (NDPG) published every several years, were ‘officially’ brought down from 900 to 400 each between 1996 and 2010.

But the GSDF has also been pushing back. Although there have been some personnel cuts, the GSDF remains over three times as large as either the MSDF or the ASDF. A defence policy official recently told me that the tentative plan to send 100 troops to Yonaguni– which is unlikely to have much operational or deterrent value – was in effect a result of GSDF officials fighting to stay relevant.

In addition, in a surprising development, procurement of tanks for the GSDF has actually increased in the most recent Mid-Term Defence Programme, to 100 over the 2011-2015 period, even though procurement in each of the previous two five-year periods was 68. Even more puzzling was that although the most recent defence policy document called for a reduction in the number of tanks to 600 in 2004 (which was further brought down to 400 in 2010), the actual number of tanks remained at 830, according to Japan’s Defence White Paper for 2010.

As budgetary constraints become tighter and maritime challenges amplify, it’s widely expected the GSDF will be hit more than most services in the coming years. But it’s also possible that the GSDF will keep using its bureaucratic clout to fight for its share of resources – a possibility that’s unlikely to serve much of a functional purpose, either for national security or disaster relief efforts.

Will the GSDF pushback effort work? Given the number of troops and the political support the force enjoys due to its bases, it’s likely it will enjoy moderate success if it follows such a path. Still, policymakers also have the option of being more proactive and demanding the reallocation of resources to match stated defence policy. This could entail reducing GSDF personnel, closing bases in Hokkaido that have waning in value for national security purposes and expanding those of the MSDF, which will likely be necessary as its submarine fleet grows from 16 to 22 vessels over the next few years. Such a shift also wouldn’t necessarily do any harm to SDF efforts to engage in disaster relief – the ASDF and MSDF together provided 36,000 of the 106,000 troops involved in relief efforts.

These are just a few ideas, and there’s much room for creative thinking regarding how best to hedge against regional security challenges.

The successful relief efforts of 70,000 GSDF troops to Tohoku will in all likelihood help buoy public support for the force, and thus buy some time for the defence establishment as it’s forced to make difficult decisions. Yet augmenting fiscal constraints make it imperative that defence policymakers begin planning now for a future with fewer resources allocated to the GSDF so that there’s some room left to build up key MSDF and ASDF capabilities.

Philippe de Koning is a Fulbright Fellow at Hiroshima University and a former participant on Pacific Forum CSIS's New Leaders Programme.

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The completion of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s fact-finding mission to Japan, and the release of excerpts from these findings, was just one of the Fukushima-related news stories this past week worth mentioning.

The report is to be presented to the Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety at IAEA headquarters later this month, but some information has come out ahead of then. Among other things, the mission apparently found no contingency plan in place at Fukushima after the tsunami overran the 5.7-metre break wall and disabled back-up generators. This was ‘despite multiple forecasts from a government agency and Tokyo Electric Power Co's own scientists that such a risk was looming.’

The mission also found that the tsunami hazard for several sites had been underestimated, something that seems inexcusable considering two basic facts: 1) Japan is prone to tsunamis and 2) all 54 of Japan's nuclear power plants are located on the coast. In some cases, Japan even outright ignored previous recommendations. The response from Tatsujiro Suzuki, a nuclear expert and vice chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission, that ‘we had a playbook, but it didn't work,’ was hardly inspiring.

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On Friday, Hiroshi Mikitani, president of Rakuten Inc., announced via Twitter that he’s considering withdrawing Rakuten from Nippon Keidanren, or the Japan Business Foundation. Nippon Keidanren is one of Japan's three major economic organizations, but Mikitani is considering withdrawing because he disagrees with Keidanren's position on the nation's electricity policy, which seeks to preserve the current structure of the sector. This is the same structure that has given rise to regional monopolies, a lack of separation between electricity distributors and providers, stifling of efforts to implement renewable energy, and some of the most exorbitant electricity prices in the world.

What's notable about this development isn't so much Mikitani's boldness—he has already established himself as an innovative, forward-thinker with his all-English edict for Rakuten. What's interesting is that other members of the Keidanren haven’t yet withdrawn, made noises about withdrawing, or in some way at least expressed displeasure with Keidanren in the way Rakuten has.

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Late last month, the Japanese government declared a 20 kilometre radius no-entry zone around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. In effect, this was a mandatory evacuation order for all those remaining within the zone. There have also been reports that more and more people could be evacuated by the end of May.

Despite this, many people still reside within Fukushima. One of the most at risk demographics is children. Not only are these children sometimes being bullied by other students once they evacuate, but in a sense the Japanese government is hurting them as well: last month the government took the step of increasing the maximum safe amount of radiation exposure for children to 20 mSv/year. For comparison, 20 mSv/year is the current average limit of exposure for nuclear industry workers. This has led some to characterize the increase as ‘unconscionable’ and ‘inexcusable.’ The government has defended itself by saying this is still within the limits set by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). But, the ICRP limits that the government referred to were only general guidelines:

'When the radiation source is under control contaminated areas may remain. Authorities will often implement all necessary protective measures to allow people to continue to live there rather than abandoning these areas. In this case the Commission continues to recommend choosing reference levels in the band of 1 to 20 mSv per year, with the long-term goal of reducing reference levels to 1 mSv per year (ICRP 2009b, paragraphs 48-50).'

Because these were general guidelines, it’s possible they may not be wholly applicable to children, a point admitted by a ministry official. According to the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), a US-based physician-led non-profit organization, ‘Children are much more vulnerable than adults to the effects of radiation, and foetuses are even more vulnerable.’ What gives the PSR statements weight in this situation is the fact that they were based on a comprehensive study of radiation's effects on both adults and children by the National Research Council, not mere guidelines.

In response to protests by concerned parents, on May 27 the Japanese government reduced its recommended yearly exposure to radiation for school children down to 1 mSv/year, adding that where this level was exceeded, the government would bear the cost for removing the topsoil on school grounds—a technique which has been effective at significantly reducing radiation readings on the surface. Fortunately, in the interim, some municipal governments rejected the government's prior 20 mSv/year figure and took it upon themselves to take additional, stricter precautions on behalf of the children.

Unfortunately for Prime Minister Naoto Kan, the reduction in recommended exposure levels has come too late for the government to avoid political damage. In addition to incurring the disapproval of organizations like the PSR and the distrust of municipal governments in Fukushima, Toshiso Kosako, an expert advisor to the Cabinet—handpicked by Kan—resigned in protest at the government's prior decision to increase the recommended exposure levels. This disparity between experts' opinions and the government's actions hasn't helped Kan’s image among the public. Its certainly given the opposition another stick with which to beat him.

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