Yasuo Fukuda, the former Japanese prime minister who lived through the first oil shock of 1973, argued that "Japan's energy security still relies heavily on Middle Eastern crude oil even more than 50 years later," calling for "long-term discussion of alternative energy and nuclear power policy."
In an interview with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun on Sunday, Fukuda said, "During the first oil shock, I was in charge of crude oil procurement at Maruzen Oil and directly experienced the sharp drop in oil supplies heading to Japan after the Fourth Middle East War. A series of Japanese tankers were unable to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, and the volume of crude arriving in Japan fell sharply." He added, "Inflation was already underway during the Kakuei Tanaka cabinet, and when supply shortages compounded it, great chaos ensued, with shortages of cement, paper, detergent raw materials and even agricultural oil."
At the time, the Japanese government rolled out large-scale support policies to secure oil resources but failed to achieve the results it had hoped for. "Oil is a business where you cannot know whether it will succeed until you actually drill," he said. "When the government set conditions to cover even the cost of failure, about 100 oil development companies sprang up in an instant, but most were inexperienced firms with almost no promising oil fields, so they ultimately failed. That burden was covered by taxpayers' money." Regarding the second oil shock triggered by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Fukuda recalled, "By then Japan had already prepared, so it was able to respond relatively calmly compared with other countries."
He expressed strong concern about current energy security. "Even now, Japan depends on the Middle East for oil resources almost no differently than it did 50 years ago," Fukuda said. "To change this, we have no choice but to actively examine alternative energy, and one of those options is nuclear power."
Still, he pointed out that challenges remain even with expanding nuclear power. "The problem of final disposal of high-level radioactive waste still has not been solved," he said. "And if security is considered important, we must also take into account that if a nuclear plant is attacked, national functions could be paralyzed in an instant." He went on, "Politicians must have a perspective that looks to the future, not just the problem in front of them," urging long-term energy policy discussion.
Born in 1936, Fukuda entered politics as a member of the Japanese National Assembly in 1990, serving as parliamentary vice-minister for foreign affairs and chief cabinet secretary before becoming the 91st prime minister in September 2007. During his tenure, he inherited the spirit of the "Fukuda Doctrine" of his late father, former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, and contributed to restoring East Asian diplomacy. He is particularly credited with contributing greatly to building a future-oriented relationship of trust and to friendship and cooperation in Korea-Japan relations.
