George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 278

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“I don’t think this is something we should be discussing here.”

Koizumi stared at Bush with a bewildered look. His question was truly rude.

“Did I perhaps say something I shouldn’t have?”

‘No, it’s not that, but still, how could you say such a thing to my face!’

Koizumi tried his best to take the question calmly.

“Well, let me say again. Isn’t it a clear fact that an earthquake might occur near Fukuoka soon?”

“No one knows if that ‘soon’ will be in ten years or a day.”

If he could, he wanted to retort to the rude fellow, ‘Isn’t predicting fault movements the best we can do? Does America perhaps have perfect earthquake prediction technology?’ But he couldn’t do that, no matter what. The foundation and core of diplomacy with the U.S. was hospitality diplomacy.

Under no circumstances could he upset the guest, even if it meant taking a step back. Especially if that guest was the President of the United States. Besides, even if he was rude, wasn’t he at least worried about an earthquake occurring in Japan?

Koizumi decided to think of it in a roundabout way. He was just someone whose way of expressing things was a bit different from ordinary people. In fact, weren’t his actions quite far from ordinary?

Therefore, if he thought of him as a somewhat eccentric genius, it wasn’t too unbearable. The thought that perhaps he held his current power because he had this way of thinking made him feel more at ease.

“Preparation is always good. But, though I’m embarrassed to say it myself, Japan’s earthquake preparedness is the best in the world. I’m grateful that the leader of our allied nation is concerned about the safety of our people.”

Bush couldn’t help but burst into laughter at those words. Koizumi seemed to have taken this laughter in a different way, but it was clearly ridicule.

He knew the reality of Japan’s response capabilities. Frankly speaking, it was basically a policy of telling the people to take care of earthquake response themselves. But it seemed better than nothing, and with just this, they had somehow managed to uphold it as the best in the world, but the truth was revealed in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.

Incompetent public power and apathetic officials. When these two combined, it became neglect rather than carelessness. The Japanese people always had to experience hell. Without even knowing that they were in hell.

“If an earthquake occurs that is too much for Japan to handle alone, a rescue aircraft carrier will be dispatched. That’s what I meant by don’t worry.”

“That’s reassuring to hear!”

The two leaders decided to gloss over this awkward situation as positively as possible. But other than that, they had nothing in common.

‘What’s so wrong with our nuclear power plants that he’s picking on them like this? We’ve even strengthened security in case of a terrorist attack from the Middle East. A significant portion of the budget that could be used elsewhere has flowed into nuclear power plants.’

‘I told them to reduce nuclear power plants, but they’re planning to build 15 more so they don’t lose to Korea? What the hell is wrong with these bastards? Did they get some kind of radiation-loving mutant gene from getting hit by atomic bombs twice?’

Perhaps because of the light-water reactor that became the catalyst for unification, the South Korean government promoted nuclear power plants as a symbol of peace, and he never imagined that it would actually reflect in public opinion to the point where they would think of solving the electricity usage of the entire northern region with nuclear power plants.

This was a complete miscalculation that Bush had never imagined. Still, if safety was properly maintained, there wouldn’t be a big problem, but he remembered what his friend, Kim Kap-hwan, said when he was working part-time at a nuclear power plant, that it was a miracle that an accident hadn’t happened yet.

Recalling that incidents and accidents that could appear in the news were constantly happening, his confidence in South Korea’s nuclear power plants began to plummet.

That’s why this visit was motivated by a sense of duty to pray that no accident would happen in this crazy East Asia, and to see with his own eyes how things were going, even if he couldn’t fully take responsibility for the future that had changed due to his actions.

The reason why Japan was first was that if he had to pick the country with the most nuclear power plant accidents in East Asia, it would undoubtedly be Japan.

Natural disasters were natural disasters, but the important thing was the ability to cope with accidents caused by natural disasters. In other words, Bush came to Japan with the intention of assessing this coping ability.

‘Still, wouldn’t things have changed a bit since I emphasized it so much?’

That’s right. When he thought about it, hadn’t many things changed since Bush had acted in some way? So maybe the nuclear power plants had changed a bit too. With that glimmer of hope, he decided to ask Koizumi.

“The budget for nuclear power plants has increased significantly.”

“Our government has simply fulfilled what the people have demanded.”

What Bush wanted to hear was the reason why the nuclear power plant budget had increased, but Koizumi’s answer was a roundabout way of saying that no American influence had been involved, so mind your own business.

Bush wasn’t stupid or oblivious enough not to understand that. Rather, he was annoyed precisely because he understood it.

‘Huh, so you’re making fun of me like this?’

His personality had mellowed out a bit these days, but he was the kind of person who couldn’t stand being taken advantage of, so he decided to change the question and just directly attack, hitting the vital point.

“The people, huh? Then the reason for increasing the number of nuclear power plants in Japan is also because of Korea?”

Even though Japan was an economic powerhouse, it was something that required a significant budget and involved taking risks. In Japan, which was considered an unstable island on top of pudding, finding a suitable site to build a nuclear power plant required a lot of administrative power.

Just building a power plant is quite a hassle, but building a nuclear power plant, which is nothing short of a concentration of modern civilization, is economically difficult. They have to take the budget from other places or harass TEPCO [Tokyo Electric Power Company], which is also ultimately a waste of administrative power.

Besides, doesn’t a nuclear power plant inevitably emit radioactive waste? There are three main ways to store radioactive waste.

One is to create temporary or permanent storage facilities and isolate them in underground tunnels, and another is wet storage. It is slowly cooled in a cooling water tank containing boric acid for a long time of 5-6 years, but this also has its limits.

So the last one is dry storage, which basically cools it down to a level where heat can be managed through wet storage and then plasters it with concrete. Depending on the specific method, a kind of window is made in the concrete to utilize air cooling through convection.

And that’s not all that comes out of it. Everything in the world has a lifespan. This is no different for nuclear power plants.

The decommissioning of a nuclear power plant is not just about demolishing it with hammers and cranes like other buildings, but a process in which people composed of the best experts win the war against radiation.

Not for 1 or 2 years, but for 15 years. And is it over after decommissioning? What about the enormous amount of high-level nuclear waste that comes out during decommissioning?

‘But they’re increasing that.’

Increasing the number of nuclear power plants itself is not a big problem. The problem is that it’s happening in Korea and Japan.

The decisive factor was that Japan and Korea were countries that could never live under one roof. Japan was stimulated because it seemed like it would be pushed out of 3rd place in the world [in terms of economic power], and Korea thought it might be able to catch up with Japan, so they started competing to build nuclear power plants as if the Soviet Union and the United States were competing in nuclear warheads during the Cold War.

‘But the damn thing is that neither of them can be trusted.’

That was the problem. Both of them were countries that caused nuclear power plant accidents like eating meals, and one of them at least tried to avoid harming others because they were good at diplomacy, but the other one not only caused harm but even scooped up poop and tried to spread it around, telling people to eat it because it was delicious. How could anyone trust these two?

“That’s not necessarily the case.”

But Koizumi also denied this. In short, it meant to stop interfering and just eat the food we provide, which was actually correct. No matter how great Bush was in America, this was Japan.

“Prime Minister Koizumi is very good at summarizing.”

Koizumi was not stupid enough to take this at face value either. However, answering sarcasm with sarcasm was not what Koizumi wanted.

The goal of hospitality diplomacy was to entertain guests with a flexible expression without touching their feelings.

“Thank you for the compliment, President Bush.”

The two of them laughed heartily in front of the camera. This photo was naturally featured in famous newspapers around the world.

Time passed, and Bush’s schedule in Japan was almost over, greatly disappointed that there were not many differences from what he already knew, except for the increased number of nuclear power plants.

‘I wanted to tell him to only talk bullshit at the urologist.’

But there was no way he could say that.

“It’s funny for a philosopher to be hungry. Historically, most famous philosophers were full.”

Bush was chatting with Abe on the last day. Abe was saying something, but honestly, he couldn’t hear it well. From the moment Bush arrived in Japan until now, all he had been thinking about was the safety of the Pacific Ocean.

Goodness, Pacific tuna pickled in radiation. It wasn’t some kind of apocalypse, and he definitely didn’t want to eat that. Even if the apocalypse came, he would rather meet an honorable death than survive by eating food pickled in radiation.

Well, if the apocalypse came, it was questionable whether Bush, the leader of the enemy country, would even be alive.

Thinking that far, Bush sighed inwardly. He didn’t want to say these words, but in order to achieve his goal, he decided to use anything as long as it wasn’t an illegal act that directly threatened public sentiment, thinking, ‘It’ll work out somehow,’ and opened his mouth.

“I’ll cut to the chase.”

The hot sake [Japanese rice wine] in the glass shimmered under the light of the bulb. Perhaps it was because alcohol inherently had the effect of paralyzing reason and giving courage, he felt a strange sensation that smoothed his tongue just by looking at it without even touching it.

“I think you will be the next Prime Minister.”

Bush clearly witnessed Abe’s pupils dilating.