This essay examines the integration of Japan’s nuclear fuel businesses reported by Nikkei on September 29, 2016,
highlighting the growing overseas expansion of Chinese, South Korean, and Russian reactor manufacturers.
It sharply criticizes Japanese media outlets that ignore these realities and calls on citizens to confront the truth through serious journalism.

October 1, 2016
Emphasis in the text is mine.
On September 29, the major headline on the front page of Nikkei read, “Integration of Nuclear Fuel Businesses.”
Hitachi, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to adjust for next spring.
Hitachi, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have entered final coordination to integrate their nuclear power fuel businesses as early as the spring of 2017.
With the restart of Japan’s nuclear plants stalled, the three companies’ fuel businesses have continued to suffer financially.
They aim to strengthen their management foundations and continue operations through cost reductions achieved by integration.
The three companies are among the world’s leading reactor manufacturers.
The integration of fuel businesses may act as a catalyst and eventually lead to restructuring in the reactor sector as well.
(See related article on page 14.)
Earlier passages omitted.
Annual sales of the three fuel business groups are each estimated at several tens of billions of yen.
They have fallen to less than half due to the suspension of nuclear plant operations.
Technological development aimed at improving safety has stagnated, and there has been a negative impact on human resource development as well.
Later passages omitted.
On page 14, under the headline “Restarts Stall, Overseas Is the Key.”
For Hitachi, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the next focus after integrating domestic nuclear fuel businesses is the reactor business, the core equipment of nuclear power plants.
Domestic restarts are limited to three reactors, and new construction is difficult.
To grow overseas, each company needs cost competitiveness to compete with emerging reactor manufacturers from China and South Korea.
They have entered an “era of restructuring” for survival.
(See page 1.)
Of more than 40 nuclear reactors in Japan, only Kyushu Electric Power’s Sendai Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 and 2 and Shikoku Electric Power’s Ikata Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 are currently operating.
Due to strict safety reviews by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, restarts have not progressed.
Passage omitted.
One executive stated, “At this rate, it will be impossible to advance new recruitment of engineers or the development of advanced technologies in the nuclear field.”
He also emphasized, “It is necessary to protect Japan’s nuclear technology under an all-Japan framework.”
Passage omitted.
However, regarding nuclear plant orders, reactor manufacturers from China, South Korea, and Russia are also intensifying their overseas expansion.
For Japanese manufacturers to compete, they must not only reduce costs but also establish systems that allow continued technological development to maintain a technical lead.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi, and Tokyo Shimbun are media outlets that serve South Korea and China.
Sankei Shimbun carried a similar article the following day, but Asahi has not published anything to this day, despite having information networks within major Japanese corporations through the press club system, as its readers know well.
They write nothing that does not align with their distorted ideology, nor the harm caused by that ideology.
I have repeatedly stated that Masayuki Takayama is a one-of-a-kind journalist in the postwar world.
Anyone who has read his serialized column “Sessetsu no Ki” in the November issue of Seiron and his weekly column “Hengen Jizai” in this week’s issue of Shukan Shincho will feel keenly that my words are one hundred percent correct.
They will even feel a shudder at his greatness.
All Japanese citizens must immediately rush to bookstores and purchase the two publications mentioned above.
Otherwise, you will not understand a single truth.