Yearbook 2012
 Japan is the world third largest country according to Digopaul. On March 11, one year after the serious nuclear
accident in Fukushima and the tsunami on the northeast
coast, memorials were held all over Japan. According to the
latest official data, 15,854 people died in the disaster.
More than 3,100 people were still missing and close to
27,000 were injured. More than 380,000 buildings had been
seriously damaged by the tsunami. One year after the
disaster, some 340,000 people were still living in temporary
housing.
In a televised speech on the occasion of the one-year
anniversary, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda promised to
intensify the clean-up work on the beaches of Fukushima and
other affected sites along the coast north of Tokyo, where
over 20 million tonnes of debris from destroyed buildings
and other landed. At the one-year anniversary, no more than
one-twentieth of the beaches had been cleared because they
feared the debris was contaminated by radioactivity from the
Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Since the disaster in March 2011, Japan had had more
earthquakes, some of which measured over 6.0 on the Richter
scale. On the anniversary, anti-nuclear demonstrations also
took place in the capital, Tokyo, among others. Opinion
surveys after the disaster showed that a majority of the
Japanese wanted to phase out and abolish nuclear power.
Following the Fukushima accident, 52 of the country's 54
nuclear reactors had been shut down in anticipation of an
investigation.
In the spring of 2012, the last two reactors were closed
for inspection and maintenance. This posed a great risk of
electricity shortages, which the authorities managed to
avoid through increased oil imports. Prior to the accident,
nuclear power had accounted for one-third of Japan's
electricity supply, after the accident, that share had
fallen below 2%. However, the increase in oil imports led to
Japan having a large trade deficit for the first time in 30
years. The authorities therefore initiated a large energy
saving program to, among other things, switch off air
conditioning and lamps in offices. In the summer of 2012,
the beaches in the Fukushima area were re-opened to bathers.
At the same time, the authorities began to put the closed
nuclear reactors in operation again. In early July, a first
reactor, at the Ohi nuclear power plant, was set in motion,
leading to demonstrations outside Prime Minister Noda's
office and near the nuclear power plant. On July 16, up to
170,000 nuclear demonstrators demonstrated in Tokyo. It was
the largest demonstration held in the Japanese capital of
over 50 years.
At the same time, two important investigations on the
Fukushima disaster and disaster work were presented. A
parliamentary inquiry concluded that it was the human factor
that had caused and further exacerbated the disaster, which
could not be considered a natural disaster. A number of
errors and intentional negligence had caused the disaster,
which according to the investigation could have been
foreseen and prevented. In addition, the effects of the
accident could have been mitigated. The failure to do so was
due to a lack of governance and control from both the
government and the company TEPCO, which was responsible for
the operation of the nuclear power plant, the investigators
said. When the disaster was a fact, it was aggravated by
lack of efficiency, communication failures and unclear
division of responsibilities between authorities. The
investigation went deeper than expected in its criticism,
saying that the authorities and TEPCO:
The second report, commissioned by the government,
criticized TEPCO for taking "completely inadequate" security
measures before the disaster.
In April, the United States and Japan signed an agreement
to relocate about half of the U.S. Navy soldiers from the
island of Okinawa to areas outside Japan. About 10,000
American soldiers would be left on Okinawa, where US forces
have been stationed since World War II. Among the Japanese,
there is resistance against the American soldiers. In the
fall of 2012, the residents' anger flared up again when a
girl was raped by two soldiers and one boy was beaten by
another soldier.
In April, a Tokyo court acquitted the experienced and
influential politician Ichiro Ozawa from charges of
violating the election campaign finance laws. He had founded
the Democratic Party (DPJ) government and been its party
leader until the charges of illegal funding forced him to
resign in May 2009, a few months before he was expected to
win the DPJ election. In August 2012, Ozawa was also
released by an appeals court.
A proposal by Prime Minister Noda to double the VAT led
to a split in the DPJ government party. In February, the
government began to negotiate with the opposition to get
through the proposal, which was to gradually increase VAT
from 5 to 10% by 2015. Increased VAT was a way of raising
money for the Treasury to manage pensions and other social
payments. benefits in a situation when Japan's population is
declining and pensioners are increasing. Two-fifths of the
Japanese are estimated to be pensioners by 2060, while
forecasts show that the country's population has shrunk by
close to one-third at the same time. Japan has the world's
fastest aging population. Moreover, Japan's economy was
severely strained after the 2011 Fukushima disaster and the
country had a foreign debt equivalent to about 200% of GDP.
In early June, Noda replaced five of its ministers in an
attempt to improve relations with the opposition and get
through the VAT increase in parliament. At the end of the
month, Parliament's lower house approved the proposal by 363
votes to 96. The government was supported by the two largest
opposition parties, but 57 of the government's own MPs voted
against the proposal. Among the internal opponents was the
party's founder Ozawa, who after the vote suggested that he
should form a new party.
At the beginning of August, the opposition-controlled
upper house also approved the VAT proposal. Noda's prize for
getting the opposition's approval was that he promised to
announce new elections.
A faction of 50 MPs left the DPJ government party in
early July in protest of Noda pushing through the VAT
increase a few days earlier. Of the jumpers, 37 came from
the lower house and 12 from the upper house. The outbreak
meant a blow to Noda and the government even though DPJ
retained its majority in the lower house. A week later, the
leader of the breakaway faction, Ichiro Ozawa, formed his
own party called People's Life Comes First. The party became
the third largest in Parliament's lower house. Ozawa said
the government's deal with the opposition to raise VAT was
undemocratic, and with the new party he wanted to give
voters an alternative.
In August, a diplomatic dispute broke out between Japan
and South Korea for the president of South Korea to visit
the archipelago of Dokdo (in Japan called Takeshima),
controlled by South Korea but also claimed by Japan. In
protest, the Japanese government called home its ambassador
from South Korea.
In late September, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda won a
party leader vote within the DPJ government party. Three
candidates challenged him. Votes on leadership are held
every two years in DPJ, according to the party's statutes. A
few weeks later, Shinzo Abe was elected LDP's new leader of
the opposition party. Abe, who was prime minister in
2006-07, was expected to become Noda's main opponent in the
next presidential election.
In October, Keishu Tanaka resigned after only three weeks
in the post of Minister of Justice, which was a setback for
the Prime Minister. He officially resigned due to illness,
but it was also known that he had received illegal financial
aid a few years earlier and that he had contacts with a
criminal gang in the 1980s.
In November, Prime Minister Noda dissolved Parliament's
lower house and announced new elections until December 16.
Nine people died when a road tunnel west of Tokyo
collapsed on December 2. Cement blocks began to collapse and
a fire broke out in the Sasago tunnel. A police
investigation was launched and inspections of road tunnels
were ordered across the country.
As the opinion polls have shown, the Conservative Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP) won the House of Assembly election on
December 16. It became a landslide victory for the LDP,
which took home 294 seats, while the party's ally New
Komeito received 31 of the House's 480 seats. Together, they
had a two-thirds majority in the lower house. Support for
the DPJ government party fell sharply, from 230 to 57 seats,
which caused Noda to leave the party leader post. A newly
formed nationalist right-wing party, Japan's reconstruction
party (Nippon Ishin no Kai), received great support and
became the third largest party in the lower house. The party
wants to arm Japan militarily.
Ten days after the election, Shinzo Abe took office as
new prime minister and was thus back on the post he had held
from 2006-2007. As Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of
Finance, Taro Aso, who had also been Prime Minister, was
appointed. Shinzo Abe promised investment in infrastructure
and weakening the yen to regain the economy. Shortly before
the election, statistics had been presented that showed that
the country was in a recession again with declining growth
and inflation. Abe also wants to arm the military and
strengthen relations with the United States. He pledged more
hard on China and said the government would step in to stop
China's challenging actions on the Senkaku Islands,
controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.
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