7656031 Discuss Japan's relation to radiation with reference to national and global contexts.

Japan today, still stands as the only country to have been the direct target of a nuclear assault, and this has spurned various effects for Japan, both domestically, and globally. Radiation has been a heavy source of fear and disparage for the Japanese, and as a direct result of the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, has deterred nations from resorting to nuclear warfare, a particular example being the Cold War. However, as this essay will attempt to illicit, although Japan was undoubtedly a victim of the attacks sustained from the dropping of the atomic bombs, subsequent involvement in the aftermath of what followed were not always morally or ethically dealt with by Japan, as well as America; and Japan has all too often misleadingly presented itself to the world as being the only victim of nuclear warfare. Within the first weeks of the bombs having being dropped and the official surrender of Emperor Hirohito, American scientists began to gather in areas and localities that the bombs had affected. Rather than investigating and providing treatment to those that had survived, or those that had been exposed to radiation due to going into high-radiation zones for matters such as family, the scientists proceeded to gather information and research the effects that the radiation had on the survivors. However, it was not just American scientists that engaged in this, Japanese scientists and medical practitioners were also curious about its effects, rather than being more concerned with the health and wellbeing of the "hibakusha" (the name for atomic bomb victims, which later became associated with anyone that was a victim of high doses of radiation); the scientists did very little to appease the situation of panic to those that had developed a variety of injuries and conditions. Most notably of this, was the Lucky Dragon fishing boat incident of 1954, where fisherman had been heavily exposed to radiation fallout from the bomb test site of Bikini Atoll. One of the fishermen ended up succumbing to the radiation, whilst the others were treated as "guinea pigs" by the doctors and scientists. Indeed, until the 1957 "Hibakusha Medical Law" was established more than a decade after the bombings, the state did nothing to look after those affected by radiation-related illness or conditions. Furthermore, information about those that had been exposed or had been a victim of the bombings was heavily suppressed by the Press Code, established on September 19th, 1945, by the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers which prevented any information of the after-effects of the atomic bomb radiation being passed through media channels to the general public, until the signing of the San Francisco Treaty in 1954, where the Press Code was lifted. The premise of this media censorship was in part due to the body parts of Japanese citizens, that had died as a result of the atomic bombings, which had been collected by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC); that these were collected and placed under American authority from 1945 and

7656031 not returned to Japanese control until 1975, had been a topic of heated contention amongst the Japanese public. America's reasoning for this holding of body parts was partly attributed to the rising movement of communism, which was beginning to gain momentum in east Asia, following the war. By controlling the release of radiation-related information to the public, anti-American propaganda would be difficult to construct, where America was trying to establish democracy in Japan while simultaneously attempting to stifle Japanese nationalism. As Lindee (1998) points out, the occupation authorities had the expectation that the ABCC would help to transition Japan into a state of a free and open society through the use of science, thus establishing a system of democracy in Japan1. What is surprising however, is that the Japanese scientists, unlike the Japanese public, did not request the return of the body parts because they were linked to mourning and grievance, but because they were a source of scientific study.2 However aggressive the atomic bombing was, and however little support America provided for the hibakusha, it should not be overlooked that Japan's government and medical practitioners were equally guilty of negligence and lack of medical aid or attention. Admittedly, due to the financial constraints of the Japanese economy at the time, having lost the war after enduring a series of material embargos prior to the attack on Pearl Harbour, providing medical assistance may well have been difficult. However, as mentioned earlier, it was not until 1957, following a strong antinuclear Japanese sentiment in the aftermath of the lifting of the Press Code, and the Lucky Dragon event of 1954, did the cries and rallies of hibakusha to receive state-supported medical triage, cause the state to engage in any effort to provide treatment. Hibakusha came to be treated the same way as burakumin; another caste of people discriminated against for the social crime of being a victim of misfortune. Children of hibakusha have also inherited the social burdens of discrimination, and a great deal of this is due to the fact that truthful scientific knowledge about the hibakusha remained secretive and repressed. Although the ABCC desired a free and open world, repressing information only served to worsen cultural situations in Japan, in regards to the hibakusha. Even today, hibakusha are still discriminated against, despite there being no scientific evidence to suggest that their condition is contagious. "Even if the psychological effects of radiation exposure are to a certain extent cross-culturally shared, hibakushas' experiences of radiation illnesses did not take place in a vacuum; they were

Lindee, M. (1998) "The Repatriation of Atomic Bomb Victim Body Parts to Japan: Natural Objects and Diplomacy", Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 13, Beyond Joseph Needham: Science, Technology, and Medicine in East and Southeast Asia, The MIT Press, pp.376-409. pg 384-385 2 In a 1962 report Cannan, a researcher involved with the research of hibakusha body parts, noted that there was "considerable criticism of the ABCC for continuing to send to the USA, and particularly to a military institution, materials derived from Japanese citizens".

7656031 shaped by the values, beliefs, and symbols of their culture, as well as by the history and politics of their society. "Radiation" came to be perceived as a polluting, defiling substance, and thus became integrated in a larger system of beliefs about purity and pollution, which are highly developed and systematised in Japanese society and rooted in Shinto and Buddhist conceptions". 3 Part of the result of this was that hibakusha faced problems in acquiring marriage partners, and were, and still are treated as outcasts, and became subjects of heavy discrimination in the workplace. This being said, the Japanese public, were, and have been victims of widespread cover-ups and lies from the Japanese government, as well Japanese organisations involved in nuclear energy and research. Exploitation of Japanese citizens is not limited to just the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Nicholas Rhl's "Nuclear Ginza" documentary, it is made apparent that during the 1970s and 1980s, day-labourers from the run-down territory of Kamagasaki in Osaka, as well as homeowners, were being hired for dangerous work in nuclear power plants without being made aware of the full extent of the dangerous work they are employed to do. They were being made to work in areas of high levels of radiation without adequate protection at these nuclear power plants, and when something in the plants went wrong, companies refuse to admit fault, or that anything was wrong. The workers accepted employment under the thought they could trust Japan Electric, because it was run by the government, and that no harm could come to them. Workers that became terminally ill, or sustained permanent internal and external injuries were allegedly being silenced with money. More recently, a similar scenario has taken place, in efforts to amend the situation at the Fukushima power plants. In hiring workers for cleanup, the Japanese government has increased the maximum radiation dose4, as if to reduce compensation that workers can apply for, raising ethical questions about the government. Japan's experience with radiation, is of course, not only limited to the Japanese. From Japan's imperial conquest in Asia during the Second World War, it consequently transpired that there had been a large number of Korean workers engaged in manual labour at factories all over Hiroshima. Naturally, they too, were made victims of the atomic bomb; and those that survived,
Todeschini, M. (1999) "Illegitimate Sufferers: A-Bomb Victims, Medical Science, and the Government", in Daedalus, Vol. 128, No.2, The Next Generation: Work in Progress (Spring, 1999), pp. 67-100. pg 68-69 4 On March 14th 2011, the Ministry of Health and Labour raised the maximum dose for workers to 250 mSv a year, where previously it was set at 100 mSv over 5 years (either 20 mSv a year for five years or 50 mSv for 2 years, which is in itself a strange interpretation of the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protections guideline stipulating a maximum of 20 mSv a year. - Jobin (2011), "Dying for TEPCO? Fukushima's Nuclear Contract Workers", The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus; Date Accessed: 22nd November 2013, URL: http://www.japanfocus.org/-Paul-Jobin/3523
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7656031 were not fully aware of what had happened to them biologically, until well after Japan's surrender on the 15th August, when Korea gained independence. Although the Atomic Bomb Medical Assistance Law enabled Japanese residents who were recognised as hibakusha to obtain health certificates to allow them to receive free health examinations and medical treatment, this law, and subsequent revisions and additional laws had not included the Korean hibakusha, whom after many being forced to move to Japan towards the end of the war, returned back to their homeland.5 Much like their Japanese hibakusha counterparts, the Korean victims faced harsh discrimination and exclusion from society upon their return to Korea, and initially received very little support from the Korean state. As Keisabur states, "Korean hibakusha were oppressed three times over: by Japan's colonial rule, by the atomic assaults, and by fifty years of abandonment in their home society."6 Yoneyama (1995) also points out that of the estimated 350,000 to 400,000 that were subjected to atomic-bomb's effects, at least 50,000 were Korean.7 Just as America and the rest of the world remain generally uneducated about the effects of the Atomic bombs and the Bikini Atoll incidents, additionally the Japanese population at large, remain ignorant about the Korean hibakusha and colonial conquest of Japan in Korea. Keisabur argues that without such information and education being made known to the world at large, anti-nuclear sentiments cannot be fully recognised, due to the general public perceiving the Japanese to be the only victims of atomic warfare to date. Yoneyama (1995) advances on this point in regards to the Korean Memorial in Hiroshima, stating that "it has contested and denationalized the dominant ways in which Hiroshima memories are articulated, namely, the remembering of Hiroshima's holocaust primarily as "Japanese" victimization."8, and Low (1990) also offers a similar perspective.9 It is also worth noting, how isolated this Korean memorial is from the official area of Japanese commemoration. From the information mentioned previously, on the exclusion of Korean hibakusha from Japan's atomic bomb medical relief laws if they had not been living in Japan post-war, the memorial separation, in addition to the lack of education of Korean experiences during the war, it could be argued that Japan has sought to associate itself, only as a victim of the atomic bomb and the Lucky Dragon incident,
Keisabur, T. (1995) "Colonialism and Atom Bombs: About survivors of Hiroshima living in Korea", in: Yoneyama, L., Fujitani, T., White., G. (2001) "Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s)", Duke University Press: Durham and London, pp 378-394. pg 382-383 6 See footnote 5, pg 383 7 At least 50,000 of the bomb victims were Korean workers who had been forced into mobilized worker and soldier roles, or had left their villages in the wake of Japan's colonial annexation of Korea in 1910. - Yoneyama, L. (1995) "Memory Matters: Hiroshima's Korean Atom Bomb Memorial and the Politics of Ethnicity", Public Culture Spring 1995 7(3): pp 499-527 8 Yoneyama, L. (1995) See footnote 7, pg 501 9 "There is no denial, however, that there is a strong Japan-centred dimension to their protests which tend toward the idea of a people "wronged" and "Japan as victim". - Low, M. (1990) " Japan's secret war? Instant scientific manpower and Japan's World War II atomic bomb project", Annals of Science, 47:4, 347-360, pg 357
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7656031 and has sought to displace itself from the damage that came not only to Japan's own civilians, but also the resulting harm that came to foreign residents of Japan at the time of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Indeed, being the world's first victims of radiation and nuclear power, Japan has often publicised itself as such; and having experienced the tragedies of such national disaster, have maintained a firm stance on not possessing or developing nuclear technology for the purpose of inflicting damage. Ex-Prime Minister Eisaku Sato was awarded the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize for his stance against nuclear armament, including his statement of the Three Non-nuclear Principles10. This is not to say, however, that Japan itself had not attempted the construction of a nuclear device for the purpose of battle during the Second World War. There is evidence to suggest that the Japanese military were also developing a nuclear warhead, where Japanese physicist Yoshio Nishina was leading the "Ni-Project"; however Low (1990) argues that the Japanese researchers in this project were disinterested in what they were being asked to research, and that the ability, technology, and workforce were not present to sustain such a project.11 In 1980, renowned sociologist and political commentator, Ikutaro Shimizu, argued that Japan should obtain nuclear weapons in order to become a full-fledged state.12 In 1996, military commentator, Nisohachi Hyodo, recommended that Japan should attempt to develop second-strike capabilities by deploying a few nuclear submarines to carry nuclear ballistic missiles.13 Although there have been comments such as these that may have aroused suspicion, many of these proposals put forward by politicians or commentators have received heavy opposition and criticism, and Kamiya (2002) argues that Japan is not willing, nor is it interested or able to become a nuclear power. It is of widespread understanding that Japanese society is highly opposed to nuclear arms. Nuclear activity has bred even more ostracizing in Japan, and is an area of deep-rooted fear for the Japanese public, as a result of the war, the Lucky Dragon incident, and more recently, the Fukushima crisis. Furthermore, Kamiya states two large reasons that Japan would not seek to arm itself with nuclear fighting capability; the first, for reasons of global and international political power, and the second, for security. "As a resource-poor island country, friendly international relations are Japans only hope to maintain its security and prosperity"14. To go nuclear could ruin Japan economically; similarly to the embargos which led to the attack on Pearl

On December 11th, 1967, at a meeting in the House of Representatives, Prime Minister Sato stated that he would try to achieve and maintain safety in Japan by not possessing, not producing, and not introducing nuclear weapons, in line with Japan's Peace Constitution. 11 Low, M. (1990) See footnote 9, pg 352, 360 12 Kamiya, M. (2002) "Nuclear Japan: Oxymoron or Coming Soon?", The Washington Quarterly, Volume 26, Number 1, Winter 2002-03, pp63-75, The MIT Press. pg 66 13 Kamiya, M. See footnote 12 14 Kamiya, M. See footnote 12, pg 67

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7656031 Harbour. Not only would tensions with neighbouring Asian countries increase, but doing so would also weaken Japan's political power on an international scale. Secondly, Kamiya puts forward the notion that for Japan to go nuclear, would trigger an arms race with neighbouring Asian countries15, similar to that of the USA and Russia which led to the Cold War. For this reason, in the preserving of Japan's national safety, it is in Japan's best interests to remain wholly peaceful. It is exactly because of their non-nuclear status, despite having the potential ability to develop such weapons, that other nations have advocated for Japan to receive a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Conclusion Although there was a large Japanese outcry of the methods the ABCC utilised in researching the hibakusha, and that in the wake of the fish contamination scare and the Lucky Dragon incident Japan were still victims of radiation, despite the war being over, it is unquestionable not just the American occupation was initially responsible for controlling information available to the public, but that the Japanese government has been instrumental in hiding and lying to the people they are supposed to govern and protect. While Japan has utilised their radiation tragedies to establish good international relations and advocating nuclear disarmament, Japan insists on maintaining a view that the Japanese were the only victim of nuclear warfare, and a large majority of people (not just Japanese) remain ignorant that up to a quarter of the atomic bomb hibakusha were Korean. "Many Japanese feel that the Japanese military would have used the bomb if it had been at their disposal, but they tend to view such actions as the will of the government, not the people. The Japanese are therefore justified as human beings, to protest against the use of nuclear weapons for they do not do so in the name of their government16". Where the hope was once that through science, democracy could be established in Japan, it has paved the way to even more discrimination in Japan, and citizens being left uninformed to the scientific truth about radiation, not just in 1945, but even as late as the 1990s, and possibly even in the modern day with the Fukushima power plants. As a monk in Nuclear Ginza reflects, "Democracy has been destroyed, where nuclear power exists".
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Kamiya, M. See footnote 12, pg 68 Tsurumi, S. (1986) "An Intellectual History of Wartime Japan,1931-1945", London: Kegan Paul International, pp 100-101.
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Bibliography & References

Jobin, P. (2011), "Dying for TEPCO? Fukushima's Nuclear Contract Workers", The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus; Date Accessed: 22nd November 2013, URL: http://www.japanfocus.org/-Paul-Jobin/3523 Kamiya, M. (2002) "Nuclear Japan: Oxymoron or Coming Soon?", The Washington Quarterly, Volume 26, Number 1, Winter 2002-03, The MIT Press, pp63-75. Keisabur, T. (1995) "Colonialism and Atom Bombs: About survivors of Hiroshima living in Korea", in: Yoneyama, L., Fujitani, T., White., G. (2001) "Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s)", Duke University Press: Durham and London, pp 378-394. Lindee, M. (1998) "The Repatriation of Atomic Bomb Victim Body Parts to Japan: Natural Objects and Diplomacy", Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 13, Beyond Joseph Needham: Science, Technology, and Medicine in East and Southeast Asia, The MIT Press, pp.376-409. Low, M. (1990) " Japan's secret war? Instant scientific manpower and Japan's World War II atomic bomb project", Annals of Science, 47:4, 347-360
Low, M. (1993) "The birth of Godzilla: Nuclear fear and the ideology of Japan as victim", Japanese Studies, 13:2, Monash University, pp48-58

Todeschini, M. (1999) "Illegitimate Sufferers: A-Bomb Victims, Medical Science, and the Government", in Daedalus, Vol. 128, No.2, The Next Generation: Work in Progress (Spring, 1999), pp. 67-100. Tsurumi, S. (1986) "An Intellectual History of Wartime Japan,1931-1945", London: Kegan Paul International, pp 100-101, in Low, M. (1993) "The birth of Godzilla: Nuclear fear and the ideology of Japan as victim", Japanese Studies, 13:2, 48-58. pg 55 Yoneyama, L. (1995) "Memory Matters: Hiroshima's Korean Atom Bomb Memorial and the Politics of Ethnicity", Public Culture Spring 1995 7(3): pp 499-527