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End Game for Japan's Construction State - The Linear (Maglev) Shinkansen and Abenomics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
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Prime Minister Abe has committed 3 trillion yen ($27 billion) to finance a linear Shinkansen project linking Tokyo and Nagoya/Osaka by Maglev. Technical analysis shows that the Linear Shinkansen constitutes not only an extraordinarily costly but also an abnormally energy-wasting project, consuming in operation between four and five times as much power as the Tokaido Shinkansen which already provides high speed rail connection. Since the 1960s, Japan's major construction projects have become vastly more costly and less efficient. Deficit-breeding, energy-wasting, environmentally-destructive, and technologically unreliable, the Linear Shinkansen project must be considered a guaranteed fiasco, with the potential not only of its own collapse but of bringing the Tokaido Shinkansen down too.
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References
Notes
1 Jiji, “10-year count-down begins for launch of Tokyo-Nagoya maglev service,” Japan Times, January 9, 2017.
2 Hashiyama Reijiro, Rinia Shinkansen – kyodai purojekuto no ‘shinjitsu’,“ Tokyo, Shueisha, 2014, p. 19. On the revised railway construction plan of August 2016, see ”JR Tokai ga tetsudo, unyu kiko ni rinia yushi o shinsei, zaito de 3 cho en, enshin maedaoshi e,“ Sankei Shimbun, November 18, 2016.
3 In 2015, the Abe Government promulgated the ‘Law for Protection of Specified Secrets’ to strengthen state control over information and re-interpreted Article 9 of the Constitution so as to be consonant with the right of collective self-defense. It also steamrollered through the Diet a series of security-related laws, enabling the overseas dispatch of Japanese troops. Abe's arbitrary and authoritarian lawmaking strongly suggests that his ultimate aim might consist not in reinforcement of the national economy but in restoration of an ultraconservative regime ideologically oriented to Meiji Constitution. (cf. Sugano Kan, Nihon kaigi no kenkyu, Tokyo, Fusosha, 2016).
4 “Shinkansen 1 km atari no kojihi wa heikin ikura gurai desuka,” 3 June 2008.
5 Nihon chikatetsu kyokai, “Nihon chikatetsu no aramashi,”.
6 On the basis of average price rates by the ten power corporations, authors estimate the power rate at \25.51 for home use and \18.86 for industrial use.
7 International Energy Agency, “Japan Balance (2014),”
8 Abe Shuji, “Enerugi mondai to shite no rinia shinkansen,” Kagaku, Vol. 83 No. 11, Tokyo, Iwanami, November 2013, pp. 1290-1299.
9 Hashiyama, Rinia Shinkansen, op.cit. See also Hashiyama Reijiro, Hitsuyo ka, rinia shinkansen, Tokyo, Iwanami, 2011.
10 Hashiyama, Hitsuyo ka, op. cit. pp. 35-47
11 Hashiyama, Rinia Shinkansen, op.cit. p. 124.
12 Hashiyama, Rinia Shinkansen, pp. 77–79.
13 Hashiyama, Hitsuyo ka, p. 28. For detail on the Gotthard Base Tunnel, see Wikipedia.
14 Hashiyama, Hitsuyo ka, p. 28. For detail on the Gotthard Base Tunnel, see Wikipedia.
15 “Rinia yushi e kaiseiho seiritsu, zensen kaigyo, saidai 8 nen maedaoshi,” Nihon Keizai Shimbun, November 11, 2014.
16 See here.
17 Misumi Masakatu, “Choki ni watari shokan ga tsuzuku – ippann kaikei shokei saimu,” Keizai purizumu, No. 48 November 2007.
18 JR Tokai, “Saimu, unso no jokyo,” 2016.
19 Misumi, op. cit.
20 Paul Krugman, “Apologizing to Japan,” New York Times, October 30 2014.
21 Asahi shimbun, 15 June 2013,
22 The Abe cabinet had been treating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as the central policy for its growth strategy. As the TPP prospect faded with the rise of Donald Trump in the US, Abe's ‘last resort’ is the ‘Integrated Resort’ type development in which the casino is to play the leading role. On December 3 2016, the Diet passed the Integrated Resort Law forcibly and almost without Diet discussion.
23 Hashiyama Reijiro and Abe Shuji, together with movements such as the “Network of Residents along the Linear Shinkansen Line” that has launched a suit for cancellation of the project, constitute exceptions.
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