Risk Management in East Asia

After the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) crisis in the year of 2003, China has rebuilt its National Emergency Management System (NEMS) to cope with challenges brought by various existing and emerging emergencies. In 2018, the NEMS experienced another major structural reform, the establishment of the Ministry of Emergency Management. This chapter aims to document the development of the NEMS in China since 2003, including its historical development, recent trends, and its interaction with society at large. We present not only the major achievements but also the remained challenges of the NEMS.

Due to the geographical, geological, and meteorological conditions, Japan has experienced almost all types of natural disasters except for drought. As a result, Japan has a long history of disaster management experience, which can serve as a useful reference for other countries. He is particularly well known for his scientific and technical research and international contributions in this field. All three previous UN World Conferences on Disaster Risk Reduction have been held in Japan, and the Sendai Framework, adopted in 2015, lays out a range of issues related to disaster risk management that each country should tackle by 2030. This chapter aims to explore the historical trends, characteristics, problems, and roots in disaster management in Japan. In particular, the chapter argues that, concerning the Sendai Framework’s goal of reducing community and national disaster risk through hard and soft measures, Japan’s actual disaster risk reduction is too inclined to the hard side. The chapter points out the historical, economic, and legal aspects of disaster risk reduction as the causes.

The chapter evaluates the extent to which disaster risk management policies and systems in South Korea have evolved from the 1960s to the present in order to cope with unprecedented challenges caused by natural disasters. Particular attention is paid to water-related disaster risk management. Mediocre levels of preparedness and prevention policies against water-related disasters, such as typhoon, torrential rainfall, and flashflood, trigger tremendous scales of damage, i.e., innumerable human losses and substantial economic losses. Typhoon Rusa in 2002 and Typhoon Maemi in 2003 badly affected the country and left invaluable lessons on how to enhance the country’s water-related risk management systems, especially for more people-centered, climate change-sensitive, socio-economic aspects-considered, and more preventive policies. The case of South Korea, which has succeeded in developing a top-down and centralized risk management system, illustrates the significance of systematic risk management policies and systems in order to tackle water-related disasters. These lessons can be benchmarked to other countries, especially developing countries which are vulnerable to water-related disasters.

Risk analysis has historically been the province of technical experts. As a rational approach to addressing uncertainty, risk analysis has relied on the assessments of highly trained scientists, the decision making of risk management specialists, and the sophisticated communication practices of trained risk communicators. However, contemporary theories of post-empiricist deliberative decision making argue that robust decision making in the face of scientific and value uncertainty requires time and a reliance on citizen participation. This chapter first argues that the history of theory in environmental risk assessment can be characterized as a twofold shift in citizens’ and experts’ role. Citizens’ role has moved from the margin as passive recipients of expert decision making to active arbiters of value rational ends and contributors to instrumentally rational means, while experts’ role has moved in the opposite direction. The chapter then introduces a number of techniques for more directly incorporating citizen viewpoints in decision making processes, ranging from telephone polls to consensus conferences. It finally offers an example of robust citizen deliberation on nuclear power in Korea that has been touted as a Korean model for deliberative polling.

As more and more actors participate in the processes of public governance, the concept of collaborative governance has gradually gained attention. This development also affects the field of risk governance, and related research has recently emphasized the interaction and practice of collaborative relationships. However, from a practical perspective, are these relationships and interactions usually positive and smooth? Therefore, this chapter aims to understand the relationship between participants’ willingness and interactive strategies in the process of collaborative risk governance. This chapter first defines the concept of risk governance and then discusses actors’ motivations and willingness to participate in risk governance in the context of a multiple governance structure. The possible impacts of actors’ motivations and willingness to participate in interactive strategies will also be explored. Ultimately, by reviewing the cases of Disaster Prevention and Protection Project (DPPP) in Taiwan, the authors make suggestions on how to improve individuals’ willingness to participate in collaborative risk governance and related ways to enhance the effectiveness of network governance strategies.

Although the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are celebrated for their potential to contribute to the better management of natural disaster risks, this chapter suggests they have a dark side because they are potentially creating postmodern technological hazards that threaten the mental integrity and autonomy of human individuals and groups. The chapter analyzes two socio-technical issues in South Korea that are identified as precursors of these new hazards. First is the dissemination of fake news in the Druking scandal of 2018. The second is the ongoing debate in Korean society over Internet addiction and children’s access to online computer games, specifically the Shutdown Law of 2011. In both cases, these new technological hazards are shown to have serious societal consequences, but key stakeholders lack consensus on how to define these hazards, assign responsibility, or devise appropriate policy responses. The chapter concludes that the 4IR paradoxically makes it easier to mitigate traditional forms of risk but also creates complex, post-physical hazards that are harder to identify and control.

This chapter articulated school risk and crisis management vis-à-vis school safety against natural disasters from both international and Japanese perspectives. Two important approaches to school disaster risk and crisis management were identified. The first is a comprehensive approach to ensure school safety in a natural disaster, while the second is a DRR approach to minimize the impact of a natural disaster at school. These approaches are integrated into the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and became one of the global targets for DRR. More concretely, minimizing deaths and injuries of children at school is the most important goal of school disaster risk and crisis management. To achieve this goal, comprehensive efforts are urgently requested at schools to secure the safety of the school learning facilities, school disaster management, and disaster risk reduction education under educational policies, and plans aligned to national, sub-national, and local disaster management plans. The chapter also provides suggestions for future collaboration to enhance school resilience through risk management at school to protect children under school supervision, and the need to exchange experiences and regional collaboration in Asia.

This chapter discusses how the disaster risk reduction (DRR) framework has evolved in the context of aid, thereby identifying policy and practice changes in addressing natural calamities. It studies the DRR instrument from the Yokohama Strategy, the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015 (HFA), and the Sendai Framework, and explores implications for Japan’s DRR cooperation policies. The first part of this chapter covers the conceptual framework of DRR to assess the Yokohama Strategy and the HFA and Sendai Framework, underscoring that Japan played an influencing role in determining some of its policies. Subsequently, the chapter outlines the historical evolution of Japan’s development cooperation from the DRR perspective, examining some cases of DRR programs implemented in disaster-prone developing nations. It concludes that Japan’s development cooperation policies transformed along with changes in the international environment, and these shifts also affected, to some extent, the domestic DRR framework, adjusting to new global circumstances. Although joint efforts that integrate local stakeholders in devising strategies are crucial, incorporating traditional or indigenous methods to complement modern technology can also lessen risks in disaster-prone aid recipient states.

In recent years, fine dust has posed a new challenge for transboundary environmental cooperation. This study examines how Northeast Asian countries have responded to the atmospheric crisis. This study sheds light on the current bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral environmental institutions, and finds both encouraging and discouraging prospects. Spreading transnational networks and rising scientific joint studies have seemingly declared the formation of a preliminary “air governance” in Northeast Asia. However, ongoing cooperation remains noncommitted, and various obstacles remain to be solved. This article suggests that transboundary fine dust appears to be more of a “political” than merely an “environmental” issue. The politicization of the transboundary fine dust issue also implies a hybrid regional “air governance,” which mixes environmental concerns with diplomatic interests. In this regard, regional atmospheric cooperation mirrors the complexity of geopolitics in Northeast Asia, a region that has been struggling for decades in rule-making and with rivalry for leadership.