Published on January 17, 2020.
This article criticizes the structure by which Japan’s cutting-edge technologies were crushed by bureaucrats and newspapers, focusing on Junichi Nishizawa’s optical communication patent struggle, the fast-breeder reactor Monju, and the Asahi Shimbun’s anti-nuclear reporting.

January 17, 2020
It was the period when the foolish Tomiichi Murayama was prime minister, and the Asahi Shimbun acted as if it were the Chief Cabinet Secretary. Asahi screamed its anti-nuclear slogans and drove two people involved to suicide. On that day, Japan’s most advanced technology was marked for decommissioning through lies and excessive reporting.
General
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The following is a continuation of the previous chapter.
In the year of the Tokyo Olympics, Junichi Nishizawa, a professor at Tohoku University, filed a patent application for a groundbreaking optical communication technology.
The Patent Office sent the application back, saying there were “defects in the format” and that it was “incomprehensible.”
Nishizawa resubmitted it twenty times, but each time a different pretext was raised.
He even took the matter to court, but after twenty years of fighting, the patent application was never approved.
Around the same time, Charles Kao, a Chinese acquaintance of Nishizawa, went to the United States and published a paper identical to Nishizawa’s.
He later received the Nobel Prize for it.
Meanwhile, the American company Corning also obtained a patent, through Kao, for a technology closely resembling Nishizawa’s.
Using that patent right, Corning sued Sumitomo Electric, which had adopted the Nishizawa method, for patent infringement and won a sweeping victory.
It is a fine example of incompetent Japanese bureaucrats crushing Japanese intelligence.
The fast-breeder reactor Monju, once called the dream reactor, was effectively decommissioned.
This, too, began as a global race, and Japan reached its first criticality in 1994. The second was Russia, which only recently began operating.
This shows just how advanced Japan had been, but shortly after Monju began operating, there was a problem involving a leak of cooling sodium.
Unlike in a light-water reactor, a coolant leak of this kind is no more serious than spilling a cup of coffee.
But the timing was bad.
It was the period when the foolish Tomiichi Murayama was prime minister, and the Asahi Shimbun acted as if it were the Chief Cabinet Secretary.
Asahi screamed its anti-nuclear slogans and drove two people involved to suicide.
On that day, Japan’s most advanced technology was marked for decommissioning through lies and excessive reporting.
The crushing of Japan’s brains was not done by the Patent Office alone.
An even more foolish newspaper had joined in.
So, what should be done from now on?
Asahi recommends, with an air of plausibility, that Japan should gradually pursue joint development with second-rate France.
Second place is good enough, is it?
Who do you think you are, Renhō?
October 6, 2016 issue.