How Japan Fumbled the Release of Fukushima Water
Protesters call for an end to the use of nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Meiji Shrine Outer Garden in Tokyo, Japan. Photo courtesy of 保守.
Throughout the last half-century, the debate over how to handle nuclear waste has pitted governments, scientists, and environmentalists against each other as each fights for their own vision of a sustainable energy future. How Japan has handled the release of treated wastewater from the now-defunct Fukushima Nuclear Plant that melted down in 2011 is no exception. Their new plan, though endorsed by the United Nations, has struggled to garner international support and has drawn the ire of neighboring countries against Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government. Japan’s failure to improve the optics around its “Fukushima plan” has caused a domino effect across its politics, economy, and international relations that risks hurting the country further in East Asia and destabilizing the government’s standing among allies.
An Unstable History
Japan’s woes with Fukushima started on March 11, 2011, when a 9.1 magnitude earthquake and tsunami rocked the northeastern portion of the nation, near the nuclear plant in Fukushima. The plant then went into meltdown, forcing the evacuation of nearly 154,000 people in the surrounding area. The explosion was rated as a “major accident,” the most severe ranking on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, rivaled only by the accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986.
Since then, the Japanese government has attempted to revitalize the region, spending nearly 22 trillion yen (190 billion USD) on cleanup and efforts to draw back former residents. However, distrust in the area and dissatisfaction with the government’s cleanup attempts remain high, with 65 percent of evacuees in a 2020 survey stating they would never return to the region.
Though the government has spent significant resources to revitalize Fukushima, cleanup efforts continue to struggle, with the Tokyo Electric Power Company using 1.23 million metric tons of water to cool the melted reactors. With storage space running out, Japan has successfully pushed for a new plan to release the treated water into the Pacific Ocean, which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) projects will have a negligible radiological impact on the immediate environment. The IAEA endorsed the plan, much to the ire of environmental activists, sparking protests worldwide and drawing an unwanted spotlight onto the Fukushima disaster once again. This increased public distrust is damaging for Japan’s geopolitical standing at a critical moment. Japan remains the strongest supporter of Taiwanese sovereignty against the People’s Republic of China’s increasingly aggressive attempts to claim the island. Without Japan, the risk of a successful Chinese takeover of Taiwan’s government and the fall of its sovereignty could be on the horizon. This risk makes it critical for both supporters of Taiwanese sovereignty and countries hoping to counter Chinese influence internationally to ensure that Japan maintains its international influence and power to keep a stable geopolitical scene in East Asia.
Economic Fissions
In his new economic plan unveiled in late September, Prime Minister Kishida called for a shift from spending cuts to active investment and wage increases, but his government’s wastewater release plan threatens to derail this agenda. Amid fears of radiation poisoning from the release of treated water, China and Hong Kong have both expanded a ban on imports of fish from the Fukushima area to all of Japan’s fisheries. This drastic collapse in trade relations will further damage Japan’s economy. China and Hong Kong together import approximately $1.1 billion of seafood from Japan, accounting for half of its seafood industry. The loss of revenue will have huge impacts for its economy, which heavily relies on seafood exports, especially in small fishing towns.
The economic woes don’t stop there. Japan’s efforts to reduce damages to the reputations of Fukushima and the fishing industry have also been unsuccessful. After the disaster, Japan conducted testing for radioactivity in food products from the region and even hosted food fairs, all in attempts to save the fishing industry in Fukushima. Fears over food safety after the nuclear plant melted down were kindled by fears of nuclear contamination in the region bordering the plant. These damage control measures, however, became virtually irrelevant with the new plan. Fishermen in the area sued Prime Minister Kishida earlier this year, hoping to stop the release of water because of fears that it would decrease public trust in seafood exports from the region, hurting their businesses in an already slow recovery from 2011.
Further, the damage will also hurt Japan’s international standing by eroding trust in the quality of their largest cultural export: seafood. China has even threatened to expand trade rules on Japan for “threats to food safety,” potentially targeting other sectors of Japan’s food industry, such as agricultural exports. These potential consequences appear to be a signal that the release of treated wastewater and the bad optics behind it will be extremely detrimental to Japan’s economic future. While Japan tries to increase its defense budget in order to counter increasingly provocative Chinese threats of invasion against Taiwan, a budgetary shortfall risks Japan cutting back on its defense budget, further compromising Taiwan’s push for sovereignty.
‘A Scientific War’
Japan’s struggles with public distrust may also correlate to a weakening of its international influence. Alongside a declining economy, an angered public could threaten the government’s integrity among other nations and allies. Taiwan’s state-controlled Atomic Energy Institute, for example, expressed skepticism in the past over Japan’s water release. In August, they announced plans to closely monitor radiation levels in water around the island. International distrust in Japan has only continued to increase.
Additionally, Japan’s government has been caught in the middle of heated scientific debate over nuclear waste, igniting more public criticism. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists criticized the misleading nature of releasing “treated” water. Citing the difference between treated water (which still carries contaminants such as cesium and oil) and their recommended standard of titrated (or chemically purified) water, which doesn’t contain these contaminants, they claimed that Japan’s plan was reckless and harmful to the safety of its citizens. Robert H. Richmond, director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, pointed out that the plan may have adverse effects on marine life and was ill-advised.
In response, Swedish chemistry expert Mark Foreman argued the release of the water would be heavily diluted and would not make the sea more radioactive than it already was. Other countries have been pushing for increased regulation of nuclear waste, seeing the current standards as outdated. As the feud between nuclear scientists continues, Japan will be dragged into another international scientific fight that further harms its image.
The Public Push Against Japan
The fight over science and safety also involves another complication: public knowledge. Notifying the public about a complicated solution like Japan’s is bound to bring confusion because of the complex logistics and lack of full understanding of the safety procedures taken to treat nuclear wastewater. For those not well versed in nuclear waste disposal, the Fukushima plan seems daunting. Internationally, this comes amid widespread protests in South Korea against Japan’s ambitious plans that threaten to destabilize the fragile relationship the country has with Japan.
The relationship between South Korea and Japan has historically been less-than-stable, despite sharing the United States as an ally. Recently, that relationship has been on the mend, after the narrow election of the West-friendly South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol. In August, relations came to a peak when U.S. President Joe Biden hosted a summit between the Japanese prime minister and Korean president, aimed at strengthening military relations and boosting cooperation between the two countries, which was largely lauded as a success.
However, this nascent friendship may change rapidly as protests continue to rock South Korea and the opposition continues to criticize the president for endorsing Japan’s Fukushima plan, dropping Yoon’s popularity to a historically low 38 percent and his ruling People’s Power Party’s polling to a dismal 31.3 percent. With turmoil in South Korea and the unpopularity of Yoon, the risk of turning over the presidency to the opposition Democratic Party, likely to be less friendly to Japan, will only increase. This shift in power could lead to the further deterioration of both relations with the United States, and more critically, Japan, breaking apart the cooperation that the three countries have called for recently.
Domestic support in Japan for the Fukushima plan continues to be divided as well, with a recent poll showing 51 percent of respondents in support of the plan and 41 percent against. This division is rare in Japan, where in the 2022 by-elections, the center-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and more conservative Komeito party won 76 of 125 seats contested, or about 60 percent overall. The stark divide over this plan threatens the LDP’s uninterrupted hold on the government majority since 1955. Divisions among the public, largely fueled by public distrust in the Japanese government’s integrity, especially after the Fukushima plan, have destabilized Japanese politics. The possibility of further damaging the integrity that Japan holds internationally as a hallmark of military power and a major ally of the United States in the region continues to increase.
A Risk of “Unimaginable” Proportions
As more and more public pressure risks Japan’s international standing, it comes with the significant risk of hurting geopolitical stability in the Indo-Pacific region. An already unstable region that was rocked by a nuclear disaster just 12 years ago has become the focal point of Japan’s foreign policy, dividing the public and becoming a significant drain on the national government’s budget. With further depletions on tax revenue amid China’s fish import ban, the national government’s ability to spend on its military becomes compromised. In addition to a scientific feud on how to dispose of nuclear waste, public support for Japan’s government continues to fall, as support for a pro-Japanese government in South Korea takes a concurrent tumble too. For Taiwan, Japan’s international standing could be the difference between independence and rule under Beijing. China has criticized Japan’s support for Taiwan in recent years, with the country continuing to aggressively claim the democratic island as its own territory. Widespread public distrust across Asia for Japan’s tactics in nuclear disposal increases risks for Taiwan, as its most important defensive ally could fall into disarray.
If Japan wants to continue supporting geopolitical stability in the region, a serious attempt to improve the optics around the release of its nuclear wastewater, or cease the release program entirely, is desperately needed to revive the support of its allies and economy.
Andrew Chung (CC ’27) is a staff writer at CPR majoring in computer science and political science. He can be reached at andrew.chung@columbia.edu.