Stephen S. Roach, presently a member of the Yale faculty and Non-Executive Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is among the most astute analysts of East Asian finance and development. In the present essay on “China's Connectivity Revolution,” however, he embraces every element of the internet utopianism that has surfaced in recent years, here drawing on the soaring figures on internet, Twitter and Facebook use in China and globally. In these figures, he and others conclude, can be found the race of countless millions to the new middle class and, of equal importance, a global communications revolution ushering in political revolution.

The Japanese government buried an official report in March 2011 outlining a worst-case scenario, including the evacuation of Tokyo, while emergency workers struggled to contain the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi, according to numerous media reports. Combined with separate revelations that a task force chaired by the prime minister failed to keep records of its meetings, these developments raise serious concerns about the government's willingness to communicate openly and to accept public scrutiny over its management of the nuclear crisis.

In April 2011, about a month after the 3.11 disasters, Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported that opposition to nuclear power had changed fairly little. A 2007 poll established that 7% of Japanese wished to do away with nuclear power completely, 21% wished to decrease reliance, 53% wanted to maintain the current situation, and 13% wanted more nuclear power generation. April 2011 numbers were only marginally different: 11% desired elimination of nuclear power, 30% wanted a decrease, 51% wanted to maintain the current situation, and 5% wished for an increase. 56% however reported “much unease” at the Fukushima accident with a further 33% feeling “some unease”. While there was no immediate turnabout in public opinion, increasingly critical reporting in the second half of 2011 from the Asahi and Manichi Shimbun, weeklies like Kinyobi and Diamond, as well as the publication of dozens of books highlighting malfeasance in the nuclear industry, the safety oversights leading up to the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns, and decades of casual irradiation of temporary workers in the nuclear industry, a great shift seems to be underway.

On 20 February the opinion of the Okinawa Governor on the Henoko Assessment was published. His opinion could be said to be more severe than any in the history of environmental assessment in Japan.

Over the past year, the idea that Japan can and should turn rapidly to renewable energy has gone from minority opinion to common sense. We are clearly watching a revolution unfold, but Japan—and not only Japan—should never forget that this is not a solitary run but a race whose prizes include economic development, jobs, and averting global warming. We usually think of the renewable competition as China or Germany, but surprisingly it also includes the US Air Force, the Navy, and the Department of Energy as well as major US corporations. The US Environmental Protection Agency's 1300 member list of Green Power Partners includes US firms such as Intel, which gets 88% of its electricity from renewables, and US municipalities like Austin Texas, which gets 100% of its electricity from green power. The members are ranked by total volume of renewable power used annually. On this basis, the Air Force is 16th. It has 131 renewable projects in operation on 56 bases, with 50 more projects under construction. These projects include solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal heat pumps, wind, landfill gas, and others. The US Air Force plans to raise their current 3% renewable-power rate (roughly equal to Japan's) to 27% by 2016.

March 13 marks the one year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of the coast of northern Japan and left over 15,000 dead. Over 3000 are still missing. Memorial ceremonies have been held all over the country.

For critical reporting on Japan's nuclear industry and continuing difficulties at the Fukushima Daiichi site, Japanese television has not kept up with the country's print media. There have been some powerful reports, however.

With the passing of the first anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi failure and meltdowns, various Japanese NGOs, activists, and energy specialists are stepping up efforts to convince the Japanese government to roll out a comprehensive support plan for solar power and other green energy sources.

It is now the second year in the fight against radiation. What should be done in a situation where we can’t see what lies ahead of us at all, and what is the situation inside the Fukushima atomic power plant meltdown? We asked Koide Hideaki.

As far as radioactivity is concerned, the fundamental rule is to make it compact and seal it off, not dilute and spread it. Scattering rubble all over the country violates the rule. National policy at present consists of two pillars. One is for local governments throughout the country to burn contaminated rubble in incinerators. The other is for each local government to dispose of the ashes as it wishes. Both are wrong.

With anniversary commemorations for March 11, 2011's terrible tragedies overshadowing all else in Japan this spring — including momentous decisions about U.S.-Japan relations pivoting on a new base in Okinawa — it is notable that historical memory controversies have reemerged to sour Japanese relations with both China and Korea. Although Japan's immediate challenges would seem to make good neighborly ties more important than ever before, some Japanese politicians persist in milking time-honored retrograde strategies for all they are worth: denying the Nanjing massacre and denigrating the experience of the comfort women. The ghosts in the memory closet of Japanese colonialism and war will not be laid to rest.

Just over thirty years ago the anti-nuclear power activist Hirose Takashi (who I knew because we frequented the same coffee house in Tokyo) said to me, “I have converted to the other side. I am writing a book arguing that nuclear power is safe after all.” He smiled to see how startled I was, and then went on. “Nuclear power is perfectly safe, right? That means there is no reason to build nuclear power plants in such far-away places. Building all those towers and stringing all those long wires costs a lot of money, and then because of the resistance in the wires you lose much of the electricity in the form of heat. Tokyo's power plants should be built in downtown Tokyo. The electricity would be cheaper, and instead of dumping all that hot water into the ocean as they do now, they could pipe it directly into people's homes, for cooking, bathing and washing clothes and dishes. If it's safe, why not?”

Last month, many TV channels around the world broadcast special reports on the nuclear crisis of March 2011. Among these, BBC's “Inside the Meltdown” and German TV channel ZDF's “Die Fukushima-Lüge” (The Fukushima lie) deserve special mention, as they both drew significant attention on the Japanese web.

We have known Iwata Wataru for more than two years, and when he decided to depart to Fukushima from Kyoto, he asked us to locate Geiger counters in France because at that time there were none available for his use in Japan. Despite active searching we found none. However, we contacted the independent radioactivity measuring laboratory CRIIRAD, which was created in France following the Chernobyl accident. The CRIIRAD people decided to send counters and other measurement accessories free to Wataru's recently created “Project 47”. In May 2011, we joined the CRIIRAD measurement mission to Fukushima and witnessed the first steps in “Project 47” and their collaboration with CRIIRAD. The link was made and the idea to create a Japanese version of CRIIRAD came to mind and Iwata took the lead: in July 2011 CRMS was born. Iwata became the founder and technical director, with the technical support of CRIIRAD and of the Umweltinstitut in Munich, with the financial support of Days Japan and other donors. Iwata's experience engagement and commitment is the topic of the new book by Nadine and Thierry Ribault:

We are seeing yet once more, a doublestandard in dealing with the PDRKs space and missile launches.

PND is calling for balance in the way we talk about both DPRK and US and Russian space and missile launches.

In the climate of fear and uncertainty concerning current levels of radioactive contamination in Fukushima Prefecture and their potential impact on public health, new government reports are indicating that these problems will remain serious ones for years.

While the rhetoric in this post 3.11 era is "mae muki" (looking ahead), there are still hundreds of thousands of displaced people displaced by the Tohoku disasters, many of whom are living in “temporary housing” units. This is not a self-sufficient way of life, and volunteers are still needed in many different ways, from playing with school kids and having tea parties with the elderly, to recovery activities, such as helping build a shotengai (shopping arcade) or fixing fisherman's nets. There is still rubble to be cleared, and beaches and parks to be cleaned. Of course, the more interaction with locals, the more Japanese language ability is useful.

Independent researcher Ian Goddard (see website here) has carried out a survey of published research on the potential health effects of rates of radiation exposure that the Japanese government has declared safe (up to 20 mSv per year). While few in Japan have been exposed to this level to this point, officials are on record saying that 20 mSv areas are safe for habitation. In addition, there are those in the Japanese scientific establishment who have argued that zones up to 100 mSv per year should be deemed safe. Currently evacuated towns closest to Fukushima Daiichi are likely to see radiation levels at or in excess of the 20 mSv exposure level for a decade or more. If the Japanese government holds to its current policies and interpretations, it is possible that evacuees, including children who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of radiation, may be moved back to “safe” 20 mSv areas. In a video presentation on his website (PDF summary courtesy of Satoko Norimatsu of Peace Philosophy Centre here) Goddard argues that accepting 20 mSv as safe could lead to a public health disaster.

For the first time in 42 years, the portion of nuclear power in Japan's energy mix reached zero on May 5 with the shutdown of Tomari's unit 3, operated by Hokkaido Electric on Japan's northernmost island. Difficulties in obtaining local approval for the restart of two reactors in Fukui Prefecture, combined with delays in establishing a new regulatory agency for the nuclear industry, could force Japan to ride out the summer months of peak demand by relying exclusively on thermal plants and energy-saving measures – a prospect the government is already taking into account.

In Ian Morris's book on energy and civilization, Why the West Rules–For Now, he writes that “greedy, lazy, frightened people” develop institutions that express “their own preferred balance among being comfortable, working as little as possible, and being safe.” But under conditions of crisis, they often innovate very rapidly. And, as is often noted, energy policy is not driven by elections but rather by crises.

At 3:36 pm on March 12, 2011, the day after the mega earthquake and tsunami hit northeast Honshu, Japan's main island, the No.1 reactor building of the Fukushima No.1 Power Plant exploded. Soon after, an order for 77,000 residents from 28,000 households within 20 km of the power plant was issued, instructing people to evacuate to areas outside a 20km zone around the plant. However, this official command was never received, as the electricity and all communication lines, including telephone and internet, had been cut by the earthquake. Nevertheless, rumor spread quickly that the radiation emitted by the explosion was so deadly that it would kill everyone in the vicinity unless they escaped immediately.