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Japan in 2011

Domestic Affairs

The massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11 sent shock waves through all aspects of domestic affairs in Japan in 2011. The most devastating effects of the disaster were in northeastern Honshu (Tohoku), where a magnitude-9.0 tremor—one of the strongest ever recorded—struck offshore east of Sendai, Miyagi prefecture. The initial quake and its dozens of powerful aftershocks were felt throughout Japan. Damage from the temblor was serious, but it paled in comparison with the overwhelming devastation caused by a series of powerful quake-generated tsunami waves, which rushed inland over low-lying areas of the eastern Tohoku coast, sweeping away cities and towns and inundating vast areas of farmland. According to official government statistics, at the end of the year, some 19,300 people had died or were listed as missing, the bulk of them victims of the tsunami. Tens of thousands more were displaced or living in temporary housing.

The most enduring effects of the March 11 disaster, however, unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex along the coast of Fukushima prefecture south of Sendai, where, following the earthquake and tsunami, the plant’s cooling systems failed. That led to partial meltdowns in three reactors and to the release of radioactive materials into the environment. The situation developed into the worst nuclear emergency since the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The Japanese government ordered the evacuation of residents living within a 20-km (12.5-mi) radius of the plant. At the end of 2011, the area remained off-limits to those residents. Many others fled areas outside the evacuation zone, and Japanese consumers studied food labels to avoid consuming vegetables and other products that had originated in the most-affected prefectures.

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The March 11 catastrophe and its aftermath had a deep impact on Japanese politics in the months that followed. It allowed Prime Minister Naoto Kan—who had been in imminent danger of losing his position—to extend his time in office to lead the country’s response to the disaster. Nevertheless, Kan’s perceived failures in that effort ultimately forced him to announce his resignation on August 26. A quick leadership election within the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) four days later led to the selection of Yoshihiko Noda as Japan’s new prime minister. Noda was the sixth prime minister in five years and the third leader from the DPJ since that party won a landslide legislative election in 2009.

  • While touring a school in Yokohama on Oct. 14, 2011, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda puts his hands …
    Kyodo News/AP

Kan lost support for several reasons, the most important of which was the general perception that he had mishandled the Fukushima nuclear emergency. In the days after the disaster, the government provided only limited information about the status of the reactor cores and the radiation levels outside the evacuation zone. For weeks the government denied that there had been a meltdown, and Kan’s cabinet thus faced criticism when it admitted a month after the disaster began that Japan had experienced a Chernobyl-level nuclear event. Similarly, when residents of villages that had not been evacuated learned that the government had recorded radiation levels there that exceeded the threshold for ordering evacuation, they blasted the government for having failed to alert them sooner.

Kan’s other significant problems were that his party lacked a majority in the upper house of the Diet (parliament) and that the DPJ itself continued to suffer from internal divisions. Short of the necessary upper-house votes, Kan’s government scaled back and delayed some emergency spending on disaster recovery. Meanwhile, Kan had to fend off a no-confidence motion in the lower house of the Diet on June 2 brought by the opposition Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP), which his DPJ rival Ichiro Ozawa and Ozawa’s supporters threatened to back. Although the prime minister survived the confidence vote (Ozawa did not vote on the motion), his subsequent effort to revive support for his leadership by promising to phase out Japan’s reliance on nuclear energy fell flat. Kan then offered to resign in exchange for legislation that provided emergency funding for the Tohoku crisis and moved Japan toward developing renewable energy.

Noda was not expected to emerge as the winner of the DPJ’s internal leadership contest that followed Kan’s departure, but he ultimately prevailed as a compromise candidate after two better-known candidates backed by pro- and anti-Ozawa wings of the party failed to win a majority on the first ballot. Noda’s subsequent cabinet and party leadership selections demonstrated that he intended to bridge the party divide, as he named top figures from each side to leadership positions. Noda chose Seiji Maehara, who had run against him with support from anti-Ozawa elements, to head the party’s Policy Research Committee, and he tapped Ozawa supporter Azuma Koshiichi to serve as DPJ secretary-general.

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After assuming leadership Noda made a series of politically difficult decisions. On November 1 his minister responsible for the nuclear industry announced that the government would allow a nuclear reactor to restart in Saga prefecture on Kyushu; the reactor had been off-line for a month after human error caused it to shut down. The decision, which led opponents of nuclear power to question Noda’s commitment to reducing reliance on that energy source, sparked protests in the nearby city of Fukuoka. Two weeks later, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu, he announced that Japan would participate in ongoing talks regarding the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement (see below). That decision was opposed by some 200 members of the DPJ caucus in the Diet.

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Quick Facts
Area: 377,950 sq km (145,927 sq mi)
Population (2011 est.): 127,937,000
Capital: Tokyo
Symbol of state: Emperor Akihito
Head of government: Prime Ministers Naoto Kan and, from August 30, Yoshihiko Noda
Japan in 2011
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