Japan preparing for nuclear U-turn?

Since its electoral victory in December, the right wing Liberal Democratic party has been setting the stage for a return to Japan's former policy of promoting nuclear power.

Shinzo Abe, who took over as prime minister last month, has given a clear indication that the government is looking to build new nuclear power plants, despite massive and widespread public demonstrations following the Fukushima disaster. "We are likely to build new nuclear power plants on winning the public's understanding," Mr Abe said in a television appearance this week.

In response to public concerns, the previous government halted all but two of the country's 50 nuclear reactors and ordered them to undergo stringent safety inspections before being restarted.

A survey conducted by the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, just before the elections last month, showed that more than 60 per cent wanted to phase out nuclear energy completely.

In its statements before the election, the LDP conceded that its pro-nuclear energy policy had been flawed and apologised for causing the Fukushima nuclear accident and promised "to establish a social and economic structure that does not need to depend on nuclear power".

By promising to pour resources into promoting alternative energy development and to develop an optimal energy mix over the next decade "the LDP kept their position on nuclear energy ambiguous before the elections", says Norimichi Hattori of the Tokyo-based Metropolitan Coalition Against Nukes.

But "since the Abe administration was formed, their rhetoric on nuclear power has changed quite rapidly", says Koichi Nakano, professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo.
"It now looks like the LDP feels it is their duty to promote nuclear energy," Mr Nakano says.

In the short term, Japan's new government may want to avoid taking concrete steps, such as restarting more reactors, which could prove controversial in the run-up to upper-house elections this July.

Winning a majority in the upper house, which is controlled by the opposition, is an important objective for Mr Abe, who has long espoused reactionary projects for educational and constitutional reform.
"There isn't much time before the upper-house elections, so they have to move carefully," says Mr Hattori at the Coalition Against Nukes.