A few days before a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the city of Kumamoto, Japanese political leaders met at the National Diet (the parliament of Japan) to pass a bill establishing a framework for a second capital. It was submitted by the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party).
It laid out the framework statute for the direction of creating a second capital. The government now has to give it a concrete form. But why is the nation looking beyond Tokyo?
Tokyo has been the capital of Japan since 1868 after the Meiji Restoration, a socio-political revolution. It generates around a fifth of the country’s economic output and houses around 30 per cent of the population. Apart from the government apparatus, the city is home to one of Asia’s largest stock markets, the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Major financial and tech companies such as Mitsubishi, Sony, and Panasonic have their headquarters situated here.
Since Japan directly sits on the 'Pacific Ring of Fire', it experiences thousands of earthquakes every year. Tokyo is more vulnerable to earthquakes because it is also the economic capital of the nation.
According to a Bloomberg report, the Japanese government estimates that there is a 70 per cent chance that an earthquake of magnitude 7 or more will occur in the Tokyo metropolitan area within the next 30 years. If it happens, a disruption of state machinery and economic functions could trigger a worldwide stock market crash.
It is to tackle this issue that the government is trying to find a second backup capital which could serve the same purpose. One or more cities could function as the backup capital. To qualify to be the second capital, a region must have sufficient government infrastructure, population size, and administrative capacity to function. It must also have a lower probability of damage than Tokyo at the time of a disaster. According to these mandates, some prefectures (local governments similar to a state) have expressed an interest in serving as the second capital, namely Fukuoka, Hokkaido, and Miyagi.
However, some oppose the plan and criticise it, arguing that the law was enacted to replace Tokyo with Osaka, which is the stronghold of the Japan Innovation Party, the coalition partner of Sanae Takaichi’s LDP. The plan for a second capital was included in the coalition agreement signed last October between the two.
Now, the government is required to formulate a basic policy within one year of the law's enforcement. Rather than simply waiting for local governments to step forward, the government's overall vision remains to be clarified: which national functions will be located in which regions, and how roles will be divided between Tokyo and the second capital both in normal times and during emergencies, Japan Forward reported.
