This dialogue analyzes how the 3.11 disaster spared Prime Minister Naoto Kan from resignation and led to a profound destabilization of Japan’s core national policies, particularly energy strategy.

2017-06-28
This exchange underscores how the absence of a coherent national strategy during the 3.11 crisis led to long-term policy drift, particularly in energy and disaster recovery, highlighting structural weaknesses in Japan’s governance at the time.

2017-06-28
Sakurai:
In Japan, I believe March 11 became a major turning point.
On the morning of that day, Prime Minister Naoto Kan of the Democratic Party government was supposed to resign amid suspicions that he had received political donations from overseas.
But thanks to the Great East Japan Earthquake, he managed to keep his position.
When Tomiichi Murayama of the Socialist Party was prime minister, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake occurred.
Although a left-leaning figure became prime minister, in Murayama’s case the Liberal Democratic Party effectively took control.
In Mr. Kan’s case, the Democratic Party handled everything entirely on its own.
The two natural disasters cannot be discussed in the same terms, but when we look at the facts, we can feel that after March 11, Japan’s fundamental national policies were greatly shaken.
Takubo:
Ms. Sakurai, you visited the disaster areas in Fukushima many times, didn’t you?
Sakurai:
Each time I go to Fukushima, I keenly feel the sins of the Naoto Kan administration and the Democratic Party.
If a state does not possess a sound way of thinking and basic policies concerning the future of the nation and the people, problems can never truly be resolved.
For example, what should be done about energy policy, which is a cornerstone of national strategy?
How should the nuclear accident be resolved, and what must be learned from it and applied to the future?
No one even tried to think about these questions logically.
It was as if the entire government had lost its ability to think.
In responding to an unprecedented disaster, the state continued to pay large sums of compensation to evacuees without any basic national strategy.
This was by no means constructive, nor did it bring positive effects to the residents.
Unless we learn the great lessons from that time, I felt a sense of crisis that we would lose our strength as a nation and as a people.
(Excerpt ends.)