September 30, 2016

Japanese Communist Party Vice Chair Ichida Tadayoshi on September 28 at the House of Councilors plenary session took the rostrum to press Prime Minister Abe Shinzo to give up on pushing ahead his anti-people policies such as the promotion of Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact and nuclear power generation.

Ichida demanded that the Abe government reverse its attempt to bulldoze through the approval of the TPP and related bills by reflecting on the failure of a similar attempt in the last Diet session. Ichida said that the reason for that failure is that the government lied about the TPP talks. The government insisted that it carried out Diet resolutions which require exempting five-key agricultural food categories from the TPP talks while promising to abolish tariffs on 30% of items in the five-key food categories as well as on 82% of imported agricultural products.

Ichida emphasized the need to disclose all information regarding the TPP negotiations in order to have informed Diet deliberations on the TPP issue. Ichida went on to say, “However, in the last ordinary Diet session, what the government did was to provide documents with titles but with the text blacked out and to allow the Cabinet minister in charge of the TPP, Amari Akira, to resign from his post without fulfilling his accountability in the TPP negotiations he participated in.”

Ichida urged Prime Minister Abe to make public all the necessary information and instruct Amari to give a detailed explanation about the free-trade talks.

Ichida pointed out that the TPP goes against Diet resolutions. He also said that it aims to prioritize interests of multinational corporations in Japan and the U.S. over Japan’s food safety as well as eliminate tariff barriers in all fields, including medical, employment, insurance, and public procurement. He also argued that the TPP will undermine Japan’s economic and food sovereignty as shown in Investor-State Dispute (ISD) settlement provisions which enable multinational businesses to influence and interfere in government policies at the national and local levels.

“This led to the loss of seats of the Liberal Democratic Party in the July Upper House election in the Tohoku region which will be heavily affected by the TPP,” Ichida said.

The JCP vice chair noted that people in Japan as well as in other TPP member nations such as America, Australia, and New Zealand have raised their voices against the TPP as it will destroy domestic economies and jobs. Ichida criticized Prime Minister Abe for trying to move ahead with ratifying the TPP in defiance of public opposition which is growing nationally and internationally and for being loyal to Japanese and U.S. corporations by sacrificing Japan’s food sovereignty and domestic economy.

Refuting Ichida, PM Abe said that under the TPP framework, Japanese farmers and small businesses will make inroads into other countries and that the TPP agreement will pose no threat to Japan’s universal health insurance system and food safety. He also said that unlike the JCP vice chair’s criticism, Japan can secure its economic and food sovereignty even under the TPP.

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Ichida next took up the issue of nuclear power generation.

Ichida pointed out that the Abe government’s reckless move to restart nuclear power plants is facing serious contradictions in various fields.

As one of the contradictions, he cited the current situation at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

The JCP vice chair criticized the government for trying to terminate the support and compensation for the Fukushima victims by lifting evacuation orders one after another with the obvious intent to give a false impression that the Fukushima nuclear accident is over and to promote the reactivation of NPPs. He went on to say that even if the evacuation order is lifted, the evacuees cannot live in peace in their hometowns because basic services for daily lives are not available there. Ichida argued that the government should continue providing compensation and necessary assistance for the victims until they restore their lives in their hometowns.

Ichida stressed that the Fukushima nuclear accident is not over, adding that the cause of the accident has yet to be determined. The government’s mid-term road map indicates that the need is to keep groundwater away from the source of radioactive pollution at the Fukushima NPP and to reduce the inflow of groundwater into each reactor building to less than 100 cubic meters per day. According to the government, the key to achieving this is to build “ice walls” by freezing underground soil at the NPP site. However, in actuality, efforts to freeze the soil keep failing and even a government panel member admitted that it has become obvious that the ice wall method does not work to stop the groundwater inflow (Tokyo Metropolitan University Professor Kitsutaka Yoshinori). Noting that the prime minister once remarked that the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP is perfectly “under control”, Ichida stated that Abe’s remark has lost credibility and that Abe should drastically review and revise measures to tackle the radiation-contaminated water problem.

As another contradiction, Ichida mentioned the growing public concern over the Kyushu Electric Power Company’s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. He went on to say that the former Kagoshima governor gave his consent to the reactivation of the plant, but a serial earthquake in Kyushu’s Kumamoto Prefecture in April reminded Kagoshima residents about the risk of a serious accident at the NPP and the insufficiency of municipalities’ evacuation plans in the event of a nuclear accident. In the July Kagoshima gubernatorial election in which the NPP was a major issue, the voters chose candidate Mitazono Satoshi, who pledged to suspend the Sendai NPP operation.

Governor Mitazono judges that in the event of a serious accident at the Sendai NPP, the current evacuation plan will not be able to protect residents’ safety, Ichida said. Noting that the government repeatedly said that local municipalities create evacuation plans, Ichida stressed that given that the current governor regards the evacuation plan--which was drawn up by the former governor--as insufficient, the plan should be drastically revised.

Without the governor’s consent or appropriate evacuation plans in place, the operation of the Sendai NPP should be halted, Ichida said.

Ichida took up the issue of the collapse of the fast-breeder reactor “Monju” project. He said that Monju has almost never been put into full operation and that it is only matter of time that the reactor will be decommissioned. In addition, Ichida explained, Monju is the key component of the government’s nuclear fuel cycle program and thus the decision to decommission Monju indicates the collapse of the program as well as the government policy to reuse spent nuclear fuel. He stated that the government should take these into account and decide to close down the spent fuel reprocessing plant in Rokkasho Village, Aomori Prefecture, Ichida said.

Ichida maintained that no more spent nuclear fuel should be produced because there is no safe way to dispose it. He added that every opinion poll shows that a majority of the respondents are opposed to the reactivation of nuclear reactors. The JCP vice chair demanded that the government decide to create a Japan without nuclear power and cancel its plan to resume operations of nuclear power stations.

In response to Ichida, PM Abe irresponsibly stated, “The effect of radiation-contaminated water is contained within the Fukushima Daiichi NPP and thus the situation is under control” and that the nuclear fuel cycle is “necessary”.

Past related articles:
> Japan should not rush for TPP ratification [September 3, 2016]
> Gov’t considering decommissioning fast-breeder reactor ‘Monju’ [September 16, 2016]
> Anti-nuclear power candidate wins gubernatorial race in Kagoshima which hosts Sendai NPP [July 11, 2016]
> ISDS provisions in TPP will cause damage to Japanese local economies [April 3, 2016]