Use Occasion of U.S. Secretary of State's Japan Visit to Request for Cooperation

In her recent Japan visit, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks with Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto. In those talks, she conveyed her intention to continue full support for reconstruction in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake and addressing the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Prime Minister Kan stated, “We will never forget U.S. assistance. I offer my thanks on behalf of the Japanese people.” We also would like to offer our sincere appreciation for U.S. assistance. Japan needs the U.S.’s leading-edge decontamination technology and experience from the 1979 Three Mile Island disaster in order to resolve the serious ongoing nuclear crisis.

The nuclear crisis is a now a major issue not only for Japan, but for the international system as a whole. Japan must give top priority to resolving the crisis and must not hesitate in asking the U.S. and other countries for their cooperation.

The Japan Self-Defense Forces and the U.S. military have been working together on an unprecedented scale in the wake of the disaster. U.S. forces have committed as many as 20,000 troops, roughly 20 ships (including aircraft carriers) and about 160 aircraft for the rescue operations and missing person searches they have dubbed Operation Tomodachi.

The U.S. has also provided a diverse array of assistance in stemming the nuclear crisis, including supplying fresh water for cooling the reactors, unmanned drones that provide images from the plant and special troop units that can operate in radiation-contaminated areas.

Ms. Clinton’s Japan visit came about through U.S. pressure on Japan following the disaster. There are other factors at work behind the U.S.’s active support of Japan beyond simply being allies.

First and foremost is that damage to factories that produce automobile parts and electronic components has crippled Japan’s capacity to supply parts and materials. Delays in recovery would disrupt the global supply chain.

Evidence of this can be seen in a joint communiqué from the recent G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors which alluded that “Events in […] Japan have increased economic uncertainty.”

Secondly, one could argue that the U.S., which operates more nuclear power plants (104) than any other country, is worried that the Fukushima disaster will heighten anti-nuclear sentiment.

In a speech at Georgetown University on March 30, President Barack Obama made an appeal to “incorporate those conclusions and lessons from Japan […] towards a new international framework in which all countries who are operating nuclear power plants are making sure that they’re not spreading dangerous nuclear materials and technology.”

Preventing the nuclear crisis from further deterioration and speeding along post-earthquake reconstruction work is what is needed right now. In order to do so, it is important for Japan to gain from international cooperation and for the public and private sectors to join forces in tackling these problems so that we can emerge from this unprecedented crisis as soon as possible.