Part V: Case Study During the Pivot — Japan

American support, necessary to cement their influence in Asia, as well as Japanese nationalism and energy interests, played an equally significant role in the development of Japan’s nuclear power industry. On August 9th, 1945, the United States military detonated an atomic bomb over the city of Nagasaki. The next day, Japan offered the Allies its surrender. The country was in ruins after World War II—four percent of the pre-war population of 74 million were dead, one-fourth of the country’s wealth had dissipated, and the civilian economy was near collapse. The occupation of the Japanese home islands was put into effect soon after the surrender, and hundreds of thousands of American troops spread across the islands. The United States took the lead role in the nominally allied occupation, which was supposed to be carried out by the Far Eastern Commission, composed of China, the Soviet Union, Britain, and a total of 11 countries that fought against Japan. While the occupation initially called for 600,000 troops from across the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the United States contributed the majority of the forces. The original plan of the United States was to stay in Japan for three years. In less than two, by March of 1947, General Douglas Macarthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), reported that “demilitarization goals have been achieved, and Japan will never gain power again.” However, given that the Cold War had already begun, and Soviet pressures loomed in the region, the United States continued to maintain a presence on the islands. Indeed, the victory of Mao’s Communist Party during the Chinese civil war and the growing recognition that Japan could be a good ally in the fight against communism led to a shift within the United States government toward policies that would promote Japanese economic self-sufficiency.

Although the Japanese did indeed guide most economic restructuring during the post-war occupation, the United States played a crucial role in the revitalization of the Japanese economy. In June of 1950, the Korean War broke out just west of Japan. Orders from the United States for military supplies to support efforts in Korea provided Japan with the demand needed to boost its economy. By 1951, the Japanese economy had recovered to its pre-war level of production. In the same year, Japan also concluded its peace treaty with the United States and announced the national goal of establishing an independent economic foundation to become self-supporting without United States aid or special procurements. However, despite the official ending of the occupation in 1952, Japan continued to remain economically dependent on the United States. From 1951 to 1952, the United States military’s purchase of Japanese products continued to total $800 million per year. In 1954, purchases totaled 3 billion dollars, and the United States continued as the biggest contributor to the Japanese economy.

Given the massive influence that the United States held over Japan, it is critical to recognize that the post-war development of Japanese commercial nuclear energy was not simply a product of the American Atoms for Peace campaign. Even during the period of occupation from 1945 to 1952, the Japanese government independently viewed science and technology as a tool of economic growth and as a symbol of national autonomy. Techno-nationalism—the use of technologies to advance national agendas and identity—emerged as a guiding ideology for Japan after World War II. The adoption of such an ideology eventually led to the usage of atomic power by the only country ever to have suffered a direct nuclear attack. The culture propagated by the post-war Japanese government was a mixture of “pacifism” and anti-Communism combined with the need for economic growth; in other words, it was techno-nationalism stripped of its explicit military components. This section will aim to argue that a holistic understanding of the Japanese consent to nuclear energy requires the acknowledgment of both factors involved: the domestic political economy of nuclear power in Japan and the United States’ efforts to project and maintain hegemony abroad.

The domestic push for commercial nuclear energy in Japan reconciled two seemingly contradictory goals—the maintenance of pacifism and the bolstering of national pride and identity. Japan’s post-war involvement with nuclear power arguably began in March of 1954, three months after Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech to the UN encouraged the use of peaceful nuclear technologies globally. An amendment to the Japanese budget was approved, allocating 260 million Yen to nuclear science and technology, 235 million Yen to the construction of a nuclear reactor, 15 million Yen for uranium exploration, and 10 million Yen for the procurement of research materials. From the beginning, Japan’s post-war government understood the importance to script separate narratives for the “civilian” and “military” atoms to keep with the pacifism that Japan had promised to subscribe to. In response to the anti-nuclear movement, which criticized all nuclear technologies alike, government officials developed a metaphor of the “nuclear allergy,” insisting that those opposed to the development of commercial nuclear power were either mentally ill or ignorant of all benefits of technology. Additionally, members of Japan’s post-war hegemonic class used their influence to lobby for an “ostensibly civilian-controlled, democratically accountable, commercial nuclear industry.” Politicians, businessmen, and scientists declared the advisability and necessity of commercial nuclearization, as nuclear reactors would galvanize the technological advancement and industrial restructuring necessary to maintain rising national income and living standards. Increasing acceptance of commercial nuclear power stood adequately within the ideology of techno-nationalism, shorn of its overt military associations. The arguments for nuclear reactors resonated with a Japanese populace that was beginning to enjoy the benefits of post-war recovery; they aimed to build a strong yet “pacifist” state—a place of security and personal prosperity.

The international image of the United States benefited greatly by providing commercial nuclear support to Japan, as the crux of Atoms for Peace was to project American power globally in the form of technological aid. As the Cold War unfolded, Japan’s identity transformed from a defeated enemy to a junior member of the alliance led by the United States against Communism. Therefore the United States’ efforts to exert its hegemony in communist Asia through Atoms for Peace began with Japan, the rising capitalist economy and a beacon of democracy in the region. American support was crucial for Japan’s nascent nuclear industry. Through the United States-Japan Atomic Energy Agreement that was signed in November of 1955, the United States supplied the enriched uranium, technological and engineering training, and financial capital required to lay Japan’s nuclear foundations. However, American aid also allowed the United States to demonstrate the ingenuity of American capitalism by exhibiting the ability to bring “rapid, cultural, economic and social improvements through the application of power reactors.”

The social struggle over nuclear power in Japan was also shaped significantly by the American propaganda campaign designed to extend its influence internationally by securing global and Japanese acceptance of the “peaceful” atom. Initially, given the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, public perceptions of all nuclear technologies were almost entirely negative. However, by making commercial nuclear power plants look both feasible and desirable, the propaganda campaign released after Atoms for Peace was the decisive element in securing Japanese consent to nuclearisation. The USIA distributed Eisenhower’s speech throughout the globe—it distributed more than 16 million posters and booklets advertising the speech through its 217 overseas posts, and the Voice of America broadcast it live to thirty-five countries. Westinghouse Electric Company, a firm that supplied atomic power to Japan, attached a cover note of its own to the 35,000 leaflets it distributed to business executives, engineers, and opinion leaders in more than 125 countries. As Osgood makes clear, the effort to publicize Atoms for Peace “was a global one, linking public and private resources in a total campaign to sell Eisenhower’s plan to the world.”

The IAEA, arguably formed as a direct result of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech, also served to emphasize the significance of a pacifist Japan while simultaneously aiding the development of Japan’s nuclear industry. In March of 1959, the IAEA announced an agreement to sell Japan three tons of natural uranium for 106,000 dollars. The uranium would be used in a 10-megawatt research reactor, and the IAEA reported that the deal was “the first purchase of nuclear fuel by a country through truly international channels.” However, the agreement with Japan bans the use for military purposes of any of the Uranium sold or of any plutonium or other special fissionable material produced from it.

Both American objectives and Japanese self-interest in the development of Japan’s commercial nuclear sector continued to transpire from the later 1950s to the mid-1980s. Even after the initial surge of support from Atoms for Peace, Japan remained dependent on technology imported from the United States throughout the 1960s. In 1963, private American firms began to sell reactors on a commercial basis to Japan—at first, Japan tended to import foreign technology rather than invest and develop indigenous industry. In 1955-1966, all nine Japanese electric power companies ordered nuclear reactors from the American companies of Westinghouse or General Electric. Thus, all but one British reactor introduced during this period were American light-water reactors.

Japan did not behave as a puppet despite the strong American influence in its nuclear energy industry; instead, it often acted per its own agency and geopolitical goals, while also balancing diplomatic relations with the United States. Many historians view Japan as a nation that had the willpower of the United States enacted upon it throughout the Cold War. The distinct technical and political goals of Japanese energy policy during the 1970s prove otherwise. In October of 1973, the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, announced an oil embargo that targeted nations that were supporting Israel in the Arab-Israeli War. The targeted nations included the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan. By the end of the embargo in March of 1974, the price of oil had risen nearly 300%, from three dollars per barrel to nearly twelve dollars per barrel globally. Japan's technological response to the energy crises dutifully followed the two goals delineated by the International Energy Agency led by the United States in 1974—the diversification away from Middle Eastern oil and the increase in usage of alternative energy sources. However, Japan's diplomatic and political response was to shift towards a pro-Arab posture and promote closer relations with oil-producing countries. The bifurcated policy required delicate balancing and stemmed from the reliance of the Japanese economy on both Middle Eastern oil and American markets.

From the late-1970s to the mid-1980s, Japan continued to demonstrate its ability to pursue an agenda independent from the United States through the development of its alternative energy and nuclear power sectors. In 1979, a second oil crisis was precipitated by the Iranian Revolution. After experiencing another round of economic shockwaves from the sharp increases in oil prices, many oil-consuming countries began to share goals in reducing the demand for oil to stabilize the world oil market; they also sought to increase their control over energy sources and energy supply reliability. Indeed, the second oil crisis in 1979 provided Japan's policymakers with strong incentives to develop additional alternative energy sources. In May of 1980, the government implemented an "Act to Promote Development and Introduction of Alternative Energy to Oil," otherwise known as the Alternative Energy Act. The Alternative Energy Act made Japanese government officials responsible for setting long-term goals for alternative energies such as nuclear power; the government also enacted programs that provided budgetary, financial, and tax incentives to promote the development of commercial nuclear energy for diversification away from Middle Eastern oil. By 1985, the Japanese government had been promoting nuclear power as a "semi-domestic" source of energy for more than half a decade: Japan's total nuclear capacity in 1986 generated more than 27 percent of total electricity production, while oil-supplied electricity accounted for less than 24 percent. Furthermore, a new five-year plan enacted in 1987 called for the improvement of existing types of light water reactors, the usage of plutonium in thermal reactors, and the implementation of the fast breeder reactor. Overall, Japan heavily prioritized the development of commercial nuclear energy during the Cold War, as it was regarded as the alternative energy source with the most potential to enhance Japan’s energy security and strengthen its international standings.