Akita International University
July 18, 2011
Taiwan’s Anti-Nuclear Politics
Introduction
Taiwan is a relatively small island which is also called Formosa which means “a beautiful island” in Portuguese. The main island of Taiwan is one-tenth of the size of Japan. There are 23,138,381 people living there (Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan), 2010). The reason why I focus on Taiwan in terms of the nuclear power plants issue is because researching this issue would be valid since it could affect Japan’s future decision about nuclear power.
The entire world was greatly shocked at the huge earthquakes and tsunami on this March and the Fukushima shock: the explosion of the nuclear power plants in Fukushima daiichi added insult to injury. After this disaster, the nuclear power plants became a target of criticism all over the world, and particularly in Taiwan too. The debate heated up even in the political level.
My main objective in this paper is to figure out how the Fukushima shock affected Taiwan’s politics and society and also how is this going to affect Japan’s future in return. In the following sections, I would like to talk about the status quo of the nuclear power plants and the history of anti-nuclear movement in a political level in Taiwan. Some similar characteristics of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants and Japan’s would be introduced in the next paragraph. Then, I will compare the two completely different stances toward the nuclear power plants in Taiwan. Moreover, I would like to look at the public opinion toward this nuclear power issue. In my conclusion I would like to consider about how this Taiwan’s trial and political change could affect Japan in the future.
Nuclear Power Plants in Taiwan
Nuclear power has also been controversial in Taiwan (WSJ). In Taiwan, the electricity is provided by Taiwan Power Company (Taiwan Power Company, 2011). They provide service to 12.58 million customers on the island of Taiwan and the Kinmen and Matsu islets. Taipower has 6 nuclear units installed in 3 stations and 2 units in a new station are under construction. Those four nuclear power plants are usually called as “the first” which is in Chinshan, “the second“ which is in Kuosheng, “the third” which is in Maanshan, and “the fourth” which is in Longmen. Other detailed information of those units is as follows. Also as the map shows, there are three units in the northernmost tip of Taiwan and one unit is in the southernmost tip of it.
Figure 1 Figure 2
Figure 1: Operating Taiwan nuclear reactors (World Nuclear Association, 2010).
Figure 3
The construction of the nuclear power plants in Taiwan has started since the late 1970s. Three of them are now generating electricity and the fourth one, which is under the construction in longmen village new Taipei city, has been made since March in 1999 under the KMT’s administration (Xie, 2003).
However, according to Xie, on March 2000, Chen Shui-bian of DPP who has been taking the position of the Anti-nuclear power plants became the president, and on May of the same year the discussion whether they should stop the construction of the fourth power plant started and on October the construction itself temporary stopped until February in 2001. Even though the administrative court proposed a bill of referendum about the fourth plant, it was strongly opposed in legislative courts by the opposition party, which is mainly KMT. Uphill battle from hostile opposition parties have still continued. Under the DPP’s administration, Taiwan held the “10th No Nuke Asia Forum” in 2002. On July 2003, there was a demonstration to push the referendum about the Longmen nuclear power plant in Taipei (Xie, 2003).
Similarities between Taiwan and Japan
The situation surrounding nuclear power plants in Taiwan bears a resemblance to Japan’s. First, they are similar in their roots of energy resources, dependency on nuclear power plants and also geographic characteristics. Both are importing most of their energy resources. Japan and Taiwan import more than 95% of its energy resources from other countries: 96% (including Uranium) (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 2007), and 99.3% (Kuomingtang Official Website, 2011) respectively. This data shows that energy resources of these both counties are depending on foreign countries.
Second, Japan depends on nuclear power plants to generate almost 30% of the total electricity and Taiwan’s nuclear power plants generate about 20% of its total electricity (Women in Nuclear Taiwan, 2010). Their dependency rates on nuclear power for their electricity are close. 20% or 30% are relatively a large portion of the total electric generating capacity. Therefore, for both of them, nuclear power is necessary for the stable distribution of electricity and also economic development. This even would be a serious matter of the national security.
However, there is another noteworthy similarity between them, q.e. these two countries are on the same quake zones according to Wall street journal “scores of reactors in quake zones” (The Wall Street Journal, 2011). According to the Wall Street journal, there are “dozens of nuclear reactors operate in earthquake-prone regions around the world. Among them, least 14 are in high-hazard areas.” The map below shows that all the Taiwan’s nuclear power plants are on this zone. “Most of those plants are in just two places: Japan and Taiwan, both islands with limited natural resources that have chosen the risks of nuclear calamity over complete dependence on foreign sources of energy.” (The Wall Street Journal, 2011). Taiwan’s four nuclear power plants are all in this quake zones.
Figure 4
Thus, the situation surrounding nuclear power plants in Taiwan and Japan has many similarities. Even though both of the counties are depending on nuclear power plants so far, especially after the Fukushima shock, it is a huge risk for Taiwan to keep having the nuclear power plants. Now, Taiwan is impaled on the horns of a dilemma.
A Role of the Nuclear Power Issue in Taiwan’s Politics
The nuclear power issue in Taiwan had an inauspicious start and still cannot get out of the shape of this confrontation between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Because of the future presidential election in 2012, lately, Taiwan’s politics has been under the big battle.
Now, Taiwan’s government is run by KMT. There are two major political parties in Taiwan, one is KMT and its opposition party is DPP. Usually KMT gets larger support from people who are living in big cities in the north such as Taipei. DPP gets more support from people who are in the south especially in rural area.
There are two candidates for the presidential election now, one is President Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT and the other one is Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP. Tsai is the chairman of DPP. She gained higher approval rating within the DPP (Taipei Times, 2011).
According to the Taipei Times (2011), Tsai Ing-wen was nominated as DPP’s candidate for 2012 presidential election this April. If she is elected as a president next year, she is going to be the first woman president in Taiwan’s history. Tsai has a pragmatic point of view on the cross-strait relations, but has a strict position on Taiwan’s sovereignty status, that means Taiwan is an independent sovereign state and does not belong to Mainland China (Taipei Times, 2011)
Figure 5 Figure 6
Figure 6: Support rate of presidential candidates in 2012 (“Campaign Indicator” with estimated vote shares excluded) (GVSRC, 2011).
Figure 7: Survey on President Ma Ying-jeou's Performance (GVSRC, May 24, 2011).
Figure 8: Respondents’ evaluations on possible changes in the cross-Strait relations if either candidate wins the presidency in 2012 (GVSRC, June, 2011).
Based on the figure 7, which is a survey conducted by Global View Survey Research Center (GVSRC) of Taiwan (2011), President Ma is getting more approval from public in terms of the cross-strait relations, which is one of the biggest and longest assignments for Taiwan. Furthermore, as the figure 8 shows, people in Taiwan have obviously a negative image against Tsai when it comes about the cross-Strait relations. According to the Taipei Times translated from liberty times, “She has spearheaded the DPP’s “10-year master plan,” a paper on how the party plans to tackle future challenges, such as an aging population, environmental degradation and the cross-strait policy, which is expected to play a key part in her campaign” (Taipei Times, 2011). Therefore, the environmental degradation, especially the non-nuclear politics will become a political trump card for her.
Comparison of Stances: Tsai and Ma
According to the official website of KMT (2011) and DPP (2011), it's not too much to say that they are taking opposite stances against nuclear power plants, especially on the 4th one. In the following two sections, each party’s stance and its supporters’ opinions will be discussed.
1. Tsai’s Anti-Nuclear campaign and its supporters
On March 25th right after the Fukushima shock, she proposed the campaign pledge: “Nuclear-free nation”: to abolish all the nuclear power plants in Taiwan by 2025. She said that it is impossible to stop all the nuclear power plants right now. The reason why she set 2025 as a goal is because that 2025 is the end year of duration life of the third power plant. That is, if the fourth plant is not built, by 2025 Taiwan’s nuclear power plants would all be expired. Tsai Ing-wen mentioned that risks and disadvantages of having the nuclear power plants are too huge in Taiwan. (The Epoch USA, 2011).
According to Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) (2011), whole Taipei, the capital city would be within a 30-kilometer radius of the plants. The first and the second plants have already included the Taipei city its 30-kilometer radius, but if the fourth plant is completed and starts to be used, the whole northern part of Taiwan would be in danger if they exploded. The establishment of the fourth nuclear power plant means that 6,000,000 people in the northern part of Taiwan would be included within 30km of the main influential areas.
Figure 9: Whole Taipei would be within a 30-kilometer radius of the plants. (TEPU, 2011).
In her blog, Tsai Ing-wen insisted that the government and also people of course should try to save the energy in daily life. She also said that during this period Taiwan can find a lot of alternative energy, and also that the people in Taiwan have to change our industrial structure, so that industry can be compatible with the environment. At the same time, they should get out from the high-energy and high water consuming life style and then turn it into the industrial structure with high knowledge, high technology and high humanities. (Tsai, 2011).
The 2025 nuclear-free program of Taiwan is a complete set of idea, they are also planning that in 2025, Taiwan will be able to secede from the dependence on nuclear energy, to change the industrial structure and way of life can change, even to be able to find more alternative solutions to produce energy which are more efficient and clean (Democratic Progressive Party Official Website, 2011).
Moreover, Tsai mentioned that there is a written policy which tells that Taiwan is going to be a “Nuclear-free nation” gradually in the environmental fundamental law which was enacted in 2002. The storage of the electricity of last year achieved 23% already. The necessary electricity storage is only 15% (Tsai, 2011). Even if all the nuclear power plants were stopped, there would still be 10% of storage. Thus, what they have to do is to think about how to fill in this about 5% gaps. Some scholars such as Professor Shi Xin-min in the department of Chemical and Materials Engineering in National Taiwan University also expressed the same point of view (Liberty Times, March 25, 2011).
Tsai’s plan on how to replace nuclear power plants is as follows (Tsai, 2011). There are some methods that Tsai offered to tackle this assignment.
a. To improve the renewable energy resources: According to the governmental rule, it should be increased by 6.5% by 2025.
b. To improve the efficiency of the thermal electric power generation. By investing money into the thermal electric power generation, it is possible to increase 5.8% of the total electricity generated. By doing this, it would also cut the CO2 emission.
c. To build new natural gas electric power generators in priority rather than building the fourth nuclear power plant. By using the two previous methods, the electricity is already increased by more than 10%. If more electricity is needed, building new natural gas electric power generators would be cleaner and quicker.
Ong Jin-zhu of DPP said that Taiwan’s renewable energy equipment already can produce 6% of whole electricity. He said that it’s possible to replace the nuclear power by renewable energy and natural gas generators (Liberty Times, March 22, 2011). Against KMT and Taipower’s opinions that renewable energy is expensive, he insisted that if the same size of disaster as Japan happened in Taiwan, the prime cost would be higher.
Asian Week criticized that Taipower is not doing well and it is hard to trust them (2011). They said that the fourth plant has many problems. For example, since under the Chen’s administration the construction was stopped and postponed, the materials such as steel were eroded. They had some serious failures on the first generator’s design in the fourth plant, what they have done to fix it was to take some parts away from the second generator and put them in the first one. Tsai Ing-wen and her supporters mentioned as above and emphasized how it is risky to keep having the nuclear power plants in Taiwan.
2. Ma Ying-jeou’s stance and anti-Tsai’s pinion
Against Tsai’s campaign pledge, Ma Ying-jeou, an active president and chairman of KMT and other supporters such as officers of Taipower and administration of Ministry of Economic Affairs have been making strong appeals to the public talking about risks and disadvantages of not having the nuclear power plants in Taiwan. They are mainly emphasizing the economical disadvantage such as the fact that Taiwan. products might lose its competitiveness if they stop using the nuclear power plants.
Ma said that “I love Taiwan, I want Nuclear power plant safety, no safety no Taiwan.” (Kuomingtang Official Website, 2011). His stance toward the nuclear power plants is very clear. He thinks that it would be better for Taiwan’s economical development to keep building the fourth plant and try to improve the security against the possibility of natural disasters (World Nuclear Association, 2010). According to the World Nuclear Association, “Nuclear power is considerably cheaper than alternatives.” (2010). Lin Sheng-zhong, a vice-minister of administration of Ministry of Economic Affairs, R.O.C. also said that the alternatives’ prime cost is too high (Liberty times, March 22, 2011). Also, Ma emphasized that 99.3% of Taiwan’s energy resources are imported (Kuomingtang Official Website, 2011). Therefore, Nuclear power plants are important for Taiwan in terms of the national security. Nuclear power plants will provide stable and cheaper energy to the people in Taiwan.
Chen Gui-ming, the CEO of Taipower emphasized that the fourth plant has no problem so far (Liberty Times, March 22, 2011). Huang Xian-zhang, the Vice president of Taipower said that stopping the fourth plant means losing 260billion NT dollars (Liberty Times, March 26, 2011), which is almost 9 billion US dollars. If they didn’t continue to use the nuclear power plants in Taiwan, people will suffer from a lack of electricity within 8 years. Moreover, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, R.O.C. said that by abolishing the nuclear power plants, CO2 emission will be higher. (Liberty Times, March 26, 2011).
Shutting down all the nuclear power plant gives a huge negative impact on industries. Chen Zhao-yi, State-operated meeting vice-committee chairman said that almost 65% of electricity would be insufficient. There would be no way to make up for the lack of electricity without nuclear power plants. (Liberty Times, March 22, 2011). Thus, Ma Ying-jeou and nuclear power supporters are expressing strong concern mainly about negative impact on economy.
Public Reactions
What about the public opinion toward this issue then? According to TVBS TV Network, Poll Center, 60% of people in Taiwan expect the “Nuclear-free nation” (2011). However, as the figure 10 shows, 52% of people are not supporting the idea of “stopping the fourth plant”. 29% said that they highly support Tsai’s idea (TVBS TV Network, Poll Center, 2011). The reason why 52% of people said they don't support Tsai’s idea is because they worry about the possible negative impact on the development of Taiwan economy.
Figure 10
Figure 11
For the question “if the electricity fee got more than 1.5 higher than now, do you agree or not?” 51% people said agree and 38% said disagree.
Figure 12
However, interestingly if there would be a negative influence on economy, then 50% of people would not agree with the idea of stopping all the nuclear power plant and 38% said agree.
Figure 13: Which one do you believe: Taipower or Scholars? (TVBS TV Network, Poll Center, 2011).
46% of the people believe Taipower’s allegation that electricity wouldn't be enough a few years later if all the nuclear power plants were abolished, on the other hand, 43% believe the scholars’ opinion that even if they closed all the nuclear power plants, Taiwan still have enough electricity storage.
Figure 14: Is Tsai’s Anti-nuclear campaign clear enough for you? (TVBS TV Network, Poll Center, 2011).
71% of people answered that Tsai’s campaign is not clear enough and 26% said that it is very clear. This data shows that it is difficult for Tsai to get more support from the public due to the lack of understanding. As the TVBS TV Network, Poll Center’s survey data shows that main concern of the public is also the economic disadvantage. Even though Tsai offered plans to deal with the lack of electricity, it seems that her campaign is still not clear enough for ordinary people in Taiwan.
Conclusion
There have been many anti-nuclear movements in Taiwan for a long time, but especially after the Fukushima shock, this nuclear power issue became one of the main concerns for people in Taiwan followed after the cross-strait relations. Through this research I found that this issue is used as a political strategy for the presidential election by the two parties. It is obvious that all the information is controlled by them. Therefore, even though those two parties’ opinions are contradictory, it will be hard for ordinary people to decide which one is right and which one is wrong. It is impossible to abolish all the nuclear power plants right now in Taiwan. The future direction of Taiwan’s nuclear power plants is heavily depending on the two major political parties. The presidential election in 2012 would especially offer a new direction in this issue.
Since there were too much information and they are complicated, I will not dare to give any personal visions or anticipations about the presidential election. However, by observing the anti-Tsai’s opinions, it seems like their point of the argument is always linked to economical disadvantages. Now, a large number of people want a “Nuclear free nation” in Taiwan however many of them cannot support Tsai’s campaign because they are concerned about the influence on economy. The anti-Tsai’s opinions are sharply pointing out their concern. Therefore, if Tsai could explain about this aspect more clearly and communicate with the public sufficiently, her anti-nuclear campaign will be the political bargaining chip for Tsai to win the presidential election in 2012.
Now, the world is more and more swayed to no-nuke movement. After the Fukushima shock, Taiwan’s anti-nuclear movement became the one in political level. If Tsai won in the presidential election next year and implements the anti-nuclear policy, Japan will be affected by this movement too. If Taiwan which has many similarities with Japan took a step ahead to the “Nuclear-free nation”, this would be a billow to push the Japanese society and government toward the same direction. The chain effect of Fukushima shock will be settled soon in the future.
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