Expression Incomplete

Blocked or completely blocked? That is the question. But is it really so? Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has frequently been changing his expression on the situation of contaminated water in First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Once he said the water had been completely blocked within the harbor annexed to the plant. Then, he omitted “completely” last week and resumed it this week. This ambiguous attitude showed his innocence on what exactly was going on there.

In his speech at International Olympic Committee in September, he told the affection of contaminated water was “completely” blocked within the harbor, inviting skepticisms on his knowledge about the fact that contaminated water had kept on leaking into the outer sea. Losing credibility on the information he received, Abe degraded his words on the issue by simply saying that the water was blocked in his answer in the General Meeting of the Diet last week. But, in the Committee of Budget in the House of Representatives this week, he again insisted on the expression of “completely blocked,” when he asked the true meaning.

The actual situation of contaminated water is far from “completely” blocked. Abe insisted on that the affection of contaminated water to human body is blocked. But, there is no such expression as affection on human body is blocked. “Although we have been trying to block contaminated water within the harbor by setting silt fence at the mouth of the harbor, the water went out of it. We have not seen any affection on human body so far.” That should be an appropriate explanation on current situation.

Abe tends to be failing in detailed expression about policies. To a question on achievement of his economic policy this week, he boasted that a hundred and thirty-two firms raised summer bonus by 5% as a result of his successful policy. Later, asked by another legislator, he corrected that the average, not all, of the rise in those firms, was 4.99%.

Those kind of wrong statements are stems from his dependence on the idea of his staffs. Without deep understanding on the details, he easily takes on staffs’ idea in official situation. When he was in his first term, he explained that there had not been forced abduction of comfort women in a narrow meaning, though there had been in a broad meaning, receiving strong opposition from the Koreans and Chinese. That happened because he simply borrowed idea of his staffs.

On the contaminated water in Fukushima, the information he had gotten did not explain what was happening there. Regardless the affection of human body is “completely” blocked or not, Prime Minister has to stop the leaking of contaminated water immediately.