Chenhuang Jinju

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Photo Credit: Public Domain

1.

AFTER DECADES OF fighting for a nuke-free world, the organization Nihon Hidankyo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In a press conference, Toshiyuki Mimaki, one of the representatives of Hidankyo, expressed his gratitude, but soon added that he thought the Nobel Peace Prize would go to those who help the children in Gaza, since “in Gaza, children in blood are being held. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”

Indeed, the damage caused by the ongoing genocide carried out by Israel in Gaza has already outnumbered in many respects the bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In fact, even the mayor of Nagasaki refused to invite Israel to the memorial for those who died in 1945’s nuclear bombing.

Still, given the global context today–the coup d’état in Myanmar, the Russo-Ukrainian war, the genocide in Gaza, etc.this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is clearly a public caution against any attempts of waging a nuclear war. It is also a warning for Japan, whose government has been consistently refusing to sign the TPNW (Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons).

For those of us who have been participating in various anti-nuclear movements, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is also encouraging. After all, we all know that non-democracy is a principle embraced by nuclear industries worldwide. We also know that it simultaneously damages the environment and humans, not to mention that being exposed to radioactive materials is the precondition for workers in the nuclear industry.

However, if one examines the announcement issued by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, one will soon notice that none of the evils listed above are being mentioned. Indeed, there is a fission inherent in their understanding of the nature of nuclear technology: Nuclear weapons are the one to blame, but not nuclear energy itself. And if one watches the Japanese news and pays attention to various interviews with Japanese citizens, one would also notice something similar: in a country where old nuclear plants are recklessly restarted, most Japanese citizens agree that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize proves once again the extreme danger of nuclear weapons.

2.

ANYONE WHO HAS studied the history of nuclear technology/energy/arms would soon get a sense of déjà vu. Indeed, this is the haunting of a ghost named Atoms for Peace.

It is well-known that the post-war U.S. faced many problems, one of which was overproduction. Thus, the Marshall Plan (1948) was launched, exporting U.S. dollars and products worldwide while subordinating the recipient countries. The “Atoms for Peace” (1953) campaign was of similar motives. That is, the U.S. attempt to monopolize nuclear arms failed shortly after 1945. As a result, “aiding” (and not really teaching) nuclear technology became a way of exporting the nuclear industry while subordinating various states into the so-called nuclear umbrella.

The problem was, how to convince Japan, a country that had just been nuked, to join the campaign? Scientists already knew that both nuclear weapons and nuclear energy depended upon the same process of nuclear fission. Not to mention the fact that scientists in pre-war Japan had also attempted to developed nuclear weapons.

The answer was to create another fission within nuclear fission.

While in Chinese, English, French and many other languages, “nuclear energy” simply refers to whatever related to nuclear technology, in Japanese, there are kaku (, lit. nuclear; core) and genshiryoku (原子力, lit. atomic power). Kaku usually means nuke, while genshiryoku stands for nuclear energy. The former stands for war and catastrophe, the latter for peace. This fission is the ideological core of the so-called Atoms for Peace. Akihiro Yamamoto, a historian specializing in nuclear-related issues, writes in A History of Nuclear Discourses in Post-War Japan (Kaku-enerugi gensetsu no sengoshi) that, the force driving Japan to become a nuclear state is precisely the memory of hibaku (being nuked [被爆] or being exposed to radioactive materials [被曝]).

Given the Soviet Union’s possession of nuclear bombs and the outbreak of the Korean War, [post-war Japan’s] scientists had been talking about the terror and crisis of nuclear war. As a result, the refusal of the “military usage” of nuclear power to “defer war” was dominating. On the other hand, the expectation of the “peaceful usage” (civil usage) was separated from the military usage… (Kaku-enerugi gensetsu no sengoshi, Jinbunshoin, 23).

As a result, many scientists, activists, and thinkers, although critical of nuclear weapons (kaku), were nevertheless actively proposing nuclear energy (genshiryoku). Hence the discourses urging the development of nuclear energy, raising the awareness of “the social responsibility of scientists,” etc., started to bloom in Japan. Even Yasuhiro Nakasone, the former Japanese prime minister, appropriated this discourse and gave it a nationalist tone, arguing that the Japanese, as a nation (minzoku) who fell victim to nuclear arms, had the responsibility to develop the peaceful use of nuclear energy (Kaku-enerugi gensetsu no sengoshi, 172). In short, the logic was that, precisely because nuclear arms are bad and unavoidable, we have to make it inevitably good.

3.

ACKNOWLEDGING THE INEVITABILITY of nuclear fission while trying to appropriate this very fission seems to be an attempt not to annihilate war, but to pacify war. However, nuclear energy (genshiryoku) is neither peace itself nor pacification of war, but warification of peace.

As Jinzaburo Takagi (1938-2000), one of the leading figures in Japan’s anti-nuclear movements, himself also a nuclear physicist, points out long ago, the nuclear reactor was originally built for nuclear weapons. Why? Because the plutonium-239 (the material of the bomb dropped in Nagasaki) does not exist in nature. It has to be produced (Plutonium no kyōfu, Iwanami shinsho, 13-4). The nuclear reactor is a pure war machine. This explains why the danger of nuclear accidents is incomparable to accidents that take place in any other kinds of energy production processes. And it also helps us understand why various regimes have been attempting to use the nuclear reactor to produce nuclear weapons. Taiwan under martial law was certainly the case. Japan is no exception (cf. Yoshitaka Yamamoto, Kakunenryō-saikuru toiu meigū, Misizu shobō).

Moreover, as the physicist and historian of science Yoshitaka Yamamoto points out, nuclear technology was and still is immature. Usually, if a technology or science is created, it would have to go through many years of processes of experimentation, failure, and re-experimentaion, before being put to mass production. And even that would not guarantee the applicability and viability of a given technology, not to mention a novel technology such as nuclear energy. (Fukushima no genpatsu-jiko wo megutte, Misuzu shobō, 26-8).

As a technology of war, it has as its principles secrecy, arbitrariness, and non-democracy (uncontrolled by either citizens or anyone outside a given military project). It is a technology born in a state of exception. And we all know that the state of exception usually does not disappear but conditions and forms a new normality.

Since it was created for war, its purpose was harm. The so-called “ashes of death,” that is, the radioactive waste, “should also be taken as part of the damage [caused by the nuclear bomb]” (Kakunenryō-saikuru toiu meigū, Misizu shobō, 18). The difference is that, in the case of the nuclear power plant, this “weapon” is not used against any specific enemy located in the “outside,” but against citizens who live nearby the power plant or nuclear waste disposal sites (which are always located in historically peripheral and often discriminated regions), and the workers in the lowest strata of the nuclear industry.

Soon after the 311 “accident,” better known as the 2011 Fukushima disaster, there were a lot of “refugees.” But they had no place to take refuge, since the state, originally conceived as a source of protection for its population, had ironically become the prosecutor of its own citizens. It was a civil war against the peripheral population.

4.

IN FACT SOME members of Hidankyo had also been proposing the peaceful use of nuclear energy (genshiryoku) for years. Until Fukushima. Originally, the term hibaku meant those who suffered from nuclear weapons (被爆). But it now stands for both the victims of nuclear weapons and more generally those who fall victim to radioactive materials (被曝). It has been 13 years. And all these years’ efforts are ignored (intentionally?) by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

Given the identity of genshiryoku and kaku, it is impossible to abolish one while the other remains intact. The two belong to the same origin, same presence, same military economy. As mentioned above, this identity is the reason many regimes have been reluctant to give up nuclear energy.

Of course, it is not difficult to understand that, since the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out, the energy supply chain has undergone dramatic change. Many countries started to reconsider nuclear energy as a viable option. But we should point out that nuclear energy is in no way safer nor cheaper than many other energies. And it certainly is neither environment-friendly nor human-friendly. The antique myth of the risk of power shortage should also be dispelled.

Taiwan’s only remaining operating nuclear plant went into annual maintenance on October 21. It’s been a week and there’s no signs of power shortage at all.

Japan’s case alone is ironic enough. But if considered together with Taiwan’s case, it might seem more ironic.

As many anti-nuclear activists know very well, the most contested nuclear plant in Taiwan, the Fourth Nuclear Plant (Lungmen Nuclear Power Plant), is the product of both the American capital and the Japanese capital. The reactor is designed by General Electric, but then transferred the engineering process to Hitachi and Toshiba. Taiwan thus becomes the first country that the Japanese nuclear industry exports its product to. (Ironically, the reason that Japan, as a member state of the NPT [Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons], was able to export nuclear product is that Taiwan is not recognized as a sovereign state and hence does not have any diplomatic ties with Japan.)

After decades of anti-nuclear protests, the tension tightened after 311. Since then, many have been actively advocating for a non-nuclear future, along with other socio-political demands. Most recently, there have been many discussions about the idea of a just transition. The difference between a just transition and “just another energy transition policy” is that the former should take into account the historical injustice, including the damages caused by top-down developmentalism, nuclear wastes being forcefully put to indigenous lands, etc. And discussions of the possibility of a Red-Green Alliance have also emerged.

Accordingly, if Japan wants to undergo a serious just transition, it should have learned from its past experience (Minamata, Fukushima, etc.) and also initiated a serious discussion about the responsibility of exporting its nuclear industry to Taiwan. However, it has already been pointed out that the transition process in Fukushima is neither just nor a serious transition (cf. “Just Transitions in Japan” and “Slow Burn: Dirt, Radiation, and Power in Fukushima”).

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize should have been an unexpected opportunity for Japan to reflect on its past and to take action in the present. However, many efforts have been deliberately overlooked by both the Committee and the new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is a proponent of “nuclear sharing” and who, when asked by a Hidankyo member to sign the TPNW, simply replied “We’ll talk about it later” (Atode hanashimashō).

Many wars are going on. We do not need another one. We need serious discussions about economic democracy, workers’ democracy, energy democracy, and all sorts of viable futures. We cannot and will not talk about it later. We talk about it now. We take action now.

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