Pollution export as state and corporate strategy: Japan in the 1970s

ABSTRACT

Most economists examining the question of ‘pollution havens’ have concluded that the level of environmental regulation and activism in different states is not generally a significant determinant of international patterns of trade and foreign direct investment. This paper argues on the basis of extensive primary research that with respect to Japan's foreign direct investment during the 1970s, at any rate, this conclusion needs to be rethought. In the early 1970s, Japanese actors were remarkably forthright in ascribing their investment decisions to a desire to move polluting industry overseas. These statements allow us to examine ‘pollution export’ as a state strategy, a project advocated by industry organizations, and a response of individual firms to high levels of protest and regulation. The paper also traces the development of the Japanese debate over pollution export through the 1970s.

KEYWORDS:

• Asia
• environment
• foreign direct investment
• Japan
• pollution havens
• social movements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research for this paper was supported financially by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, Cornell University's East Asia, Southeast Asia, and International Political Economy programs, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author would like to acknowledge his gratitude to Jennifer Clapp, Eric Helleiner, Peter Katzenstein, Suehiro Akira, and three anonymous reviewers for RIPE for their suggestions, to Arakawa Shunji for giving him access to his collection of back numbers of Kōgai o Nogasu Na!, and to Robin Webster and Yoshino Isao for their research assistance. All errors are the author's own.

Notes

1. This paper does not address the impact of Japan's pollution on Asia, that is, the parameters of Japan's ‘shadow ecology’. For attempts at this task, see Nihon Bengoshi Rengōkai (1991); Cameron (1996); Dauvergne (1997); Parker (1998); Itō (2004); Hall (2006).

2. See inter alia Ozawa (1979: 21 and passim); Nishikawa (1978: 307); Arase (1995: 78); Hatch and Yamamura (1996: 20); Doner (1997: 203); Pempel (1997: 58); Korhonen (1998: 48–51); Solis (2004: 126).

3. Especially the Asahan aluminum smelter in Sumatra, Kawasaki Steel's sintering plant in Mindanao, and Mitsubishi's Asian Rare Earth plant in Malaysia.

4. See Nectoux and Kuroda (1990); Miyamoto (1992); Kawahara (1995); Kawana (1996); Itō (2004).

5. For an overview of early work see Leonard (1988: Ch. 3).

6. For a helpful treatment of the literature's methodology, see Brunnermeier and Levinson (2004).

7. Efforts to move ‘beyond pollution havens’ which fall outside this framework include Clapp (1998, 2002); Porter (1999); Hall (2002b).

8. Positive (though sometimes qualified) findings include Leonard (1988); Molina (1993); Pargal and Mani (2000); Dean et al. (2005). For negative results see Low and Yeats (1992); Birdsall and Wheeler (1993); Letchumanan (1998); Mani and Wheeler (1998); Neumayer (2000).

9. Interview, Arakawa Shunji, Tokyo, 7 November 2000.

10. One exception is the January 1971 suggestion by Tanaka Nobuji, Vice-Director of the Japan Industrial Siting Center, that sending polluting industry to Asia would only exacerbate anti-Japanese sentiment (Tanaka, 1971: 1).

11. <http://www.basel.int/ratif/ban-alpha.htm> (accessed 26 May 2008).