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Publicatie Laka-bibliotheek:
The Anti-Nuclear Power Movement in Japan (1992)

Auteur	Masuro Sugai
Datum	1992
Classificatie	4.21.0.00/06 (JAPAN - ALGEMEEN)
Voorkant

Introduction

Japan's anti-nuclear power movement has, from the latter half of the 1960s to the 
present, been sustained mainly by local residents, that is, by people living near sites 
where plant construction is slated, or where a plant has already been built despite 
opposition. On the other hand, in other areas and in the major cities, very few 
people participated in the anti-nuclear movement until the radioactive contamination 
of imported food became a problem after the Chernobyl accident in the USSR. This 
stands in stark contrast to the movement to ban atomic and hydrogen bombs, which 
was triggered by the United States' hydrogen bombs tests at Bikini in 1954, and 
which spread from Tokyo to the rest of Japan in only a short time.
Even though this 20-year anti-nuclear power movement was centered around reactor 
sites, the character of the movement differed according to the conditions in each 
locale and each local campaign's objective, and this makes it difficult to discuss the 
movement from a unified perspective. One indicator would be the extent to which the 
movement has been organized on a national level, or to what extent it can influence 
the government's energy policy. But to the campaigns by residents near reactor sites, 
the first objective of which is to block the construction of certain nuclear plants, 
these would seem to be of secondary significance, or regarded as only one part of 
the movement's achievements.
For these reasons, here, I will use nuclear accidents -which have served as a brake 
on the development of nuclear power in Japan- as an indicator, and review the 
history of the anti-nuclear power movement to date.
Stage I was from the latter half of the 1960s, when the government's nuclear plant 
siting policy was defined for the entire country, to the 1974 radiation leak incident 
on the nuclear-powered ship Mutsu in 1974; Stage II lasted until the 1979 Three 
Mile Island accident in the United States; Stage III lasted until the 1986 Chernobyl 
accident; and Stage IV extends from that time until the present.

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