~ When Crisis Came, the Government Protected Industry, Not People ~
On February 28, 2026, the Strait of Hormuz entered a state of effective blockade. Approximately 90% of Japan's crude oil imports pass through this strait. When that supply route stops, the issue is not that energy becomes expensive — it is that energy stops arriving. This crisis is structurally different from anything Japan has faced before.
The problem is not a natural disaster. It is a set of policy choices. The fiscal resources existed. The legal instruments existed. The precedents existed. And yet the government chose not to use them.
When people think of an energy crisis, they typically imagine rising electricity bills. The 1973 Oil Shock and the 2022 Ukraine war were, for Japan, fundamentally price crises: expensive, but purchasable. Alternative sourcing was possible. Conservation could bridge the gap.
The 2026 Hormuz Crisis has a different structure. Approximately 90% of Japan's crude oil imports pass through the Strait (Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, 2025). Physical blockade does not mean prices rise to a level where purchase becomes difficult. It means the physical supply stops moving. No amount of money resolves that in the short term.
Both previous crises were "expensive but purchasable." The 2026 crisis is "cannot be purchased at any price." This distinction is the foundation from which government accountability must be assessed.
Following the onset of the crisis, Japan's government issued the following official responses:
The phrase "no immediate impact" was applied simultaneously to price rises, to subsidy extensions, and to constitutional determinations. Each use of "immediately" deferred action by a different mechanism.
The Prime Minister cited Japan's "254-day petroleum reserve" as the basis for reassurance. The actual composition of that reserve warrants examination.
Of the 254-day total, 147 days constitute the national strategic reserve. Of that national reserve, 97.2% is crude oil — not refined products. Immediately usable refined products (gasoline, kerosene, light oil) account for approximately 3% of the national reserve, or roughly 1.43 million kiloliters.
In a genuine supply disruption, refineries themselves face operational risk. Crude oil reserves cannot be deployed without functioning refinery infrastructure and intact logistics networks. The "254 days" figure does not disclose these conditions. It is arithmetically accurate and operationally misleading.
A further inconsistency has not been officially explained. The Japanese government previously cited the Hormuz blockade scenario as its own example of an "Existential Crisis Situation" in formal parliamentary responses justifying the 2015 collective self-defense legislation. That scenario has now materialized. The government has determined it does not qualify. No public explanation of the reasoning has been provided.
Facing the same energy crisis conditions, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the EU adopted a common design logic: recover windfall profits from companies that benefited from the crisis, and return those resources directly to households.
The United Kingdom introduced the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) in May 2022. Initially set at 25%, it was raised to 35% in January 2023 — bringing the aggregate effective tax rate on upstream oil and gas to 75% when combined with the existing ring fence corporation tax (30%) and supplementary charge (10%). The rate was subsequently increased to 38% in November 2024, raising the effective rate to 78%. The UK Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projects oil and gas-related tax receipts of £4.1 billion for fiscal year 2025–26 (OBR, Spring Statement 2026).
Germany established a €200 billion "defensive shield" (Schutzschirm) in late 2022, capping household electricity at €0.40/kWh and gas at €0.12/kWh. Approximately €18 billion in consumer compensation was paid out between January and May 2023. Companies receiving support above €50 million were prohibited from paying executive bonuses (Federal Ministry of Finance, 2023).
France completed the full nationalization of EDF in June 2023 at a cost of approximately €9.7 billion, redefining energy as state-managed infrastructure rather than a market commodity (French Government, June 2023).
In January 2022, the Japanese government launched the "Fuel Oil Price Stabilization Program." An initial budget of ¥89.3 billion has expanded through successive extensions to a cumulative disbursement of ¥8.2 trillion as of 2026. The subsidy is paid not to consumers, but to petroleum wholesalers.
During this same period, Japan's major oil wholesalers recorded their highest profits in corporate history. ENEOS Holdings posted a net profit of ¥537.1 billion in fiscal year 2021 (Securities Report). The structure is one in which public tax revenue is converted into corporate profit.
The distributional design compounds this problem. According to Japan Research Institute analysis (April 2025), a ¥10/liter subsidy delivers annual benefits of ¥5,477 to households in the top income quintile, versus ¥2,607 to the bottom quintile — a design that disproportionately benefits high-income, high-mileage, and rural households.
The claim that "the government has no money" does not withstand scrutiny.
The Foreign Exchange Fund Special Account (FEFSA) held a balance of approximately ¥210 trillion as of end-2025 (Ministry of Finance, Foreign Reserve Report). The FY2024 surplus recorded a historical high of ¥5.3603 trillion.
| Year / Event | Use of FEFSA Surplus | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 — Great East Japan Earthquake | Special Measures Act enacted → ¥230 billion extracted mid-fiscal year for public relief | Ministry of Finance (confirmed) |
| FY2022–FY2024 | FEFSA surplus allocated to defense budget increases | MOF Settlement Reports (explicit) |
| 2026 — Hormuz Crisis | Surplus of ¥5.3 trillion exists → direct energy crisis application: zero | MOF (no allocation made) |
The Ministry of Finance explains that selling foreign currency assets would constitute de facto currency intervention, risking yen appreciation and deterioration of Japan-U.S. financial relations. History contradicts this position. In 2011, the government enacted special legislation to extract ¥230 billion from FEFSA mid-year for disaster relief — without the intervention mechanism being triggered.
The legal basis for broader use also exists. Article 8, Paragraph 2 of the Special Accounts Act states that surplus funds may be transferred to the general account budget "as determined by the budget." Legislation would have been sufficient.
The accurate conclusion, supported by primary sources, is not that the funds could not be used — it is that they were not used.
The Strait of Hormuz is among the world's most critical energy chokepoints. Japan's 90% crude oil dependency is acute, but South Korea depends on approximately 70% and India on approximately 60% (IEA, Energy Security Report). European nations depend on Middle Eastern LNG routed through or near the same corridor.
The structural question raised by Japan's response is not unique to Japan: when physical energy supply is threatened, does a government's crisis response protect its citizens or its industries?
Germany confronted a version of this question in 2022, when Russian gas supplies were cut. Germany chose to recover windfall profits from energy companies and shield households. Japan, facing a comparable structural test in 2026, made the opposite choice.
As climate change, geopolitical tension, and great-power competition increase the probability of supply disruptions, every energy-importing nation will face this question. Japan's 2026 response is a documented case study in what the wrong answer looks like — and why it matters.
The facts documented in this report can be summarized as follows:
What the government chose instead was corporate subsidies and requests for individual behavioral adjustment ("please keep your heating below 20°C"). This is the structural inverse of what Europe's major economies chose under comparable conditions.
The accountability demand is singular: why were available resources not deployed? A government that cannot answer that question in public has not fulfilled its obligation to the people it governs.
This question is not addressed solely to Japanese citizens. It is addressed to the citizens of every nation that depends on imported energy — and to every government that will face this choice.