On Jan. 5, three of Japan’s top business lobbies held a joint New Year’s press conference and one of the topics discussed was the disaster in Ishikawa Prefecture, in particular how it might affect the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, whose progress has been plagued by delays. Despite flagging public support for the Expo, the business community continues to back it, saying it must be carried out at all costs. However, a slight chink in this facade of confidence was exposed when Takeshi Niinami, the president of Suntory Holdings and current chairman of the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai), expressed hesitation about prioritizing the Expo while people in the area stricken by the quake were still suffering. 

According to Tokyo Shimbun, Niinami stressed that the Expo, slated to start in April 2025, should go ahead as planned, but also said that he has heard from associates in the affected area that the “scale of damage” is “extraordinary,” adding that the shortage of construction labor in Japan, which is one of the main problems affecting the Expo, “shouldn’t hamper reconstruction in the disaster area.”

Since the quake on New Year’s Day, some people in the media have said that helping the victims return to some normal semblance of life should be Japan’s priority, which means resources now being used to build pavilions and other infrastructure for the Expo should be transferred to Ishikawa. If that happened, the Expo could be doomed, because there is no way all the structures planned for the event would be completed in time. 

The other two representatives in attendance, Masakazu Tokura of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren) and chairman of the Expo committee, and Ken Kobayashi, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce, were unwavering in their continuing support for the Expo. Tokura said, in essence, that the two matters are not in conflict with each other. “We must address the disaster as soon as possible,” he said, “but we also have to keep the meaning of the Expo in mind.” Kobayashi remarked that the quake was an act of God and thus shouldn’t have any effect on the Expo, which will “demonstrate” Japan’s power to the world.

Tokyo Shimbun used Niinami’s trepidation as a jumping off point for a brief discussion of where the Expo is at the moment. The budget for venue construction has increased 90 percent since it was first proposed due not only to labor shortages but increased construction material costs. Almost no pavilion construction has started yet (Singapore’s was supposed to begin Jan. 10), and a number of countries have already pulled out. In April, new labor standards will go into effect that limit overtime for workers, including those in construction, and which could exacerbate the delays even more. 

Another important point, and one that Tokyo Shimbun doesn’t mention, is that if the Expo is cancelled, the organizers will have to pay a total of ¥35 billion to the countries still on board. This compensation increases to ¥84 billion if the cancellation comes after April 13, 2024. 

Given Japan’s track record for such events, it is highly unlikely that the Expo will actually be cancelled. Both the Osaka government and the central government will spend any amount of money necessary to make sure something called an Expo will start in April 2025. The main concern now is how much of this price will be paid by the public, which, as already stated, seems to be increasingly ambivalent about the matter. A recent Kyodo survey showed that 68.6 percent of respondents said it was “not necessary” to go through with the Expo. Even 65 percent of supporters of the Ishin no Kai party, which basically initiated the Expo idea, said it is unnecessary. 

The research arm of the conservative Sankei Shimbun carred out its own survey and received pretty much the same results last November. Only 31.2 percent of the respondents said they wanted to go to the Expo, down from 53 percent in a survey conducted the previous May. That’s a drop of more than 20 points in six months. Even more damaging was the finding that only 19 percent of Ishin supporters said they had “high expectations” for the festival, with 20 percent of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party supporters saying they had “zero expectations” for it. 

Akahata, organ of the left-leaning Japanese Communist Party, was even more pessimistic about the fortunes of the Expo, which it insists be cancelled. Pointing out in the Dec. 17 print issue that the overall budget has tripled since the bid was made in 2017, Akahata’s research shows that each resident of Japan will have to bear ¥2,800 for the Expo, residents of Osaka prefecture will have to pay ¥9,100 each, and those living in the city of Osaka will shoulder ¥107,000. The budget will probably go up even more, since the operating expenses for the Expo were supposed to be covered by ticket sales, which have been very lackluster so far. 

What should be noted is that the Expo isn’t the end game. Ishin no Kai’s goal is the casino resort that was approved by the central government last year. Money spent on the Expo will pay for infrastructure construction on the landfill island Yumeshima, where the Expo is being held and the resort eventually situated. However, since this work has started it’s been discovered that the landfill might be toxic and unable to support major construction in its present state. Moreover, there is only one road that connects the mainland to the island. So while it still seems unlikely the Expo will be cancelled, it could very well turn out to be, in Akahata’s view, “a debacle.”