Recently, on March 7, Japan made an official statement on a long-pending issue of hosting the
International Linear Collider (ILC) in Iwate prefecture. The statement is, however, very ambiguous and may have brought about some confusions among those concerned with the ILC project domestically and internationally as well. Basically, the Japanese government says that it is interested in the ILC project but has no intentions to host the ILC yet. The government representative also says that Japan is ready to continue the international discussion on the ILC project. For those who have expected a conclusive decision from the Japanese side, these statements are disappointing with an impression of lack of leadership by the Japanese government. Indeed, there are many reports in such a tone.
Japanese government punts on decision to host the International Linear Collider (Science, March 7, 2019)
Plans for world's next major collider stuck in limbo (Nature, March 7, 2019)
Japan puts plans for the world's next big particle collider on hold (Science News, March 7, 2019)
Disappointment as Japan fails to commit to hosting the International Linear Collider (Physics World, March 7, 2019)
Japan defers ILC decision (Symmetry, March 7, 2019)
It is understandable that oversea media respond negatively, given that the deadline of the statement has been postponed. Note that last December the
Science Council of Japan (SCJ), a special organization under the cabinet office, reported that due to financial obscurity and other circumstantial situations (such as lack of communication among researchers) the SCJ is not fully convinced to support the ILC program in Japan, although it admits the scientific significance of the ILC. In response to this negative opinion, the European representatives of the ILC project decided to postponed the due date from the end of last year to March 7, 2019.
At the end of last year I felt that SCJ's report was somewhat reasonable because of the followings.
- Japan is an earthquake country and we are still in a way of recovering from the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami disaster on March 11, 2011. Thus, financially it may be difficult to get public and political supports for the ILC which allegedly costs 800 billion yen (over 7 billion US dollar) in total.
- An international experimental project such as ILC should be constructed in a stable continent with little risk of earthquakes and should be hosted by a relatively rich country. In the current situation China or India would be the best choice.
- The reason why Iwate prefecture in Tohoku region was chosen as a proposed site (or why Saga prefecture was not selected) was not clear at least for me. Some people speculate that it is related to the financially demanding decommissioning process of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
- The very situation that Japan is asked by other countries to host the ILC is not a good sign to convince the public to support the project. If Japan has unique technologies to build the ILC and takes an initiative to lead the project with international cooperation, then the public would be eager to support the ILC project but the situation is different.
Since the SCJ is an organization under the government, I have speculated that the Japanese government might well deny the ILC project. But on a day before March 7, I have come to know via the Japanese media that the government has not decided anything yet. Personally, I found this news perplexed because it is impolite not to say anything decisive, having kept the European representatives so long time. I was and am still afraid that the international ILC representatives are getting fed up with the ambiguous responses from the Japanese government and eventually withdraw the ILC plan from Japan, meaning that Japan may lose trust in international academia. I guess this is the worst scenario I could think of for the future of the Japanese particle-physics community. Thus I urge the Japanese government to make a final decision on whether it hosts the ILC or not as soon as possible.
