The way Ronald Dore rephrased his proposed question regarding the trade-off between missing green house gas targets and shutting down nuclear power plants seems reasonable to me. I hope a polling outfit will pick it up.

I should add that some new polling by NTV suggests that there is not at this point a clear and stable opinion majority against relying on nuclear power in the short-run. Their July poll conducted last week shows a large plurality, but not a majority, opposed to Noda's decision to restart the Oi reactors. It also shows that only a small plurality (of about 2% or within the margin of error) would oppose further reactor restarts, if the new nuclear power regulatory commission, due to be launched in September, judges those plants to be safe to operate. The difference between these two questions suggests many voters opposed Noda's decision because they thought it was too hasty and not decided by the appropriate regulatory body.

Finally, only a minority, although a large minority of 37.4%, support the zero option of shutting down all of Japan's nuclear power plants (presumably immediately).
A small plurality of 40.2% supports the option of allowing Japan's nuclear power plants to be gradually shut down as they reach their service life, and hence the option of relying on nuclear power for 15% of Japan's electricity by 2030. A mere 10.7% support relying on nuclear power for 25% of Japan's electricity needs by replacing some decommissioned reactors. In other words, pronuclear opinion has shrunk to a very marginal minority indeed, but a block ranging up to 40% appears willing to continue relying on nuclear power to a limited degree in the short-run. (That said, there is a methodological problem with this question, since Japanese respondents, when given three answer options tend to gravitate toward the middle answer). This block of voters may be taking green house gas emissions into consideration, along with energy security considerations, although without asking them we cannot know for sure. However, this group's support for running some nuclear plants appears conditional on there being a credible plan for phase out. Without that, there is good reason to think that many voters in this category would join the large zero option minority in voting out candidates who are not sufficiently anti-nuclear. And given that the zero option block is so well politically mobilized, the possibility of another wave election, this time over nuclear power, remains a real possibility.

Regarding Ron's questions about public opinion toward China, I am not doing research in that area, so I cannot make many recommendations. My main two recommendations would be to look at the annual Yomiuri poll on relations with the US and China, which is published in early December, and to loo at the Naikaku fu "Gaikou in kansuru yoron chosa" for questions related to feelings toward China.

Best Regards,

Paul Midford
Norwegian University for Science and Technology