Intimidation and Survival

Yakuza, Japanese version of mafia gangs, penetrate ordinary lives of ordinary people. They trade drugs, collect money and intimidate their enemies. They would not necessarily be people who dropped out of the society. Top elites may sometimes behave as yakuza, unconsciously or not.

The Government of Japan approved the reconstruction plan of Tokyo Electric Power Company, which brought unprecedented disaster in its First Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant three years ago. The plan assumes that the company will keep on distributing power generated by nuclear power, based on resumption Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant by July. If they are unable to resume it, TEPCO threaten the public that they will raise utility fee by 10%. The plan itself is an intimidation to anti-nuclear activists.

TEPCO is de facto government-own company now. The government bought over a half of its total stocks and decided to pay actual cost for the effort of decontaminating huge land in Fukushima, which should be done by TEPCO. The money being injected to the company is inevitably the tax money collected from the nation. The more money gets into TEPCO, the bolder the company becomes in threatening people’s lives.

The method of intimidation is like this: “Ok, you guys cannot live without electric power, we know, so if you want it, you need to pay for it. Frustrated with our business? We don’t care at all.” Here is rhetoric. What the people need is electric power, not necessarily be nuclear power. TEPCO tells people as if all the power will be shut down, if they stop working. There actually is, however, no nuclear power generation working in this cold winter.

What the President of TEPCO, Naomi Hirose, did right after the approval of the plan was to visit the Governor of Niigata, where Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is located, to get approval in resumption of nuclear plant. The Governor, Hirohiko Izumida, firmly opposed the plan. “The plan is a moral hazard putting responsibilities of stockholders and renders aside. I hope you to review it,” told Izumida in the meeting with Hirose. Governor has crucial role to approve resuming halted nuclear power plants.

The national government keeps on being involved in life-prolonging efforts of TEPCO. It decided to send Fumio Sudo, Corporate Adviser of JFE Holdings, as new chairman of the board of TEPCO, who is one of the strongest advocates for salvaging the company. Because of this one-way drive toward resumption of nuclear reactors, former Prime Ministers stood up for the governor of Tokyo, which is the biggest consumers of TEPCO’s power, with promise of zero nuclear power. Let us see the conclusion of the capital.