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American scientists hoping that President Bush would return from Japan
last week with billions of yen for the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC)
were disappointed. Although Japan’s Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa expressed
enthusiasm for the project, he has ruled out any cash for at least a year.

For the past year, the US has been pressing Japan to contribute around
$1.6 billion to the project, which will cost some $8.2 billion. Without
Japanese cash, the prospects of building the gigantic proton accelerator
in Waxahachie, Texas, look bleak.

When Bush’s visit was first planned, Japan’s contribution to the
proposed supercollider was near the top of his agenda for talks in Tokyo.
But the wide-ranging Plan of Action eventually agreed by Bush and Miyasawa
contained only a single paragraph on the SSC. It proposes setting up a joint
working group ‘to examine technical and other aspects’ of the project and
‘consider how this project can be formulated as an international project
to enable Japan to participate’.

Despite the Americans’ optimism, Japan’s plans to subscribe to the project
in 1992 had effectively been killed during budget deliberations at the end
of last year. Senior politicians are in favour of the project but have been
under great pressure to reduce government spending.

Despite this, Miyazawa is said to have assured the President in a private
meeting last week that the Japanese will cooperate in the project. The Americans
now hope that the legislation needed to approve funds for the SSC will be
passed before 1993.

Many Japanese scientists are not as keen on the SSC as their Prime Minister.
They fear that funding for the supercollider will be at the expense of research
projects at home. Japan’s contribution to the collider, estimated at around
30 billion yen ($236 million) a year, would be almost half the government’s
budget for basic research in natural science.

Some scientists are also unhappy that Japan is being asked to underwrite
a project almost entirely drawn up by the US. ‘I’m for participation in
the SSC if there are enough scientists committed to the project,’ says Sukeyasu
Yamamoto, professor of high-energy physics at Tokyo University. ‘But I don’t
think we should simply give money and pay a very high admission price to
a project that has already been decided on.’

Akito Arima, president of Tokyo University and himself a nuclear physicist,
thinks the cost of joining the project is too high. ‘From an academic point
of view I strongly support the construction of the SSC. I would like us
to take part if we had enough money, but our government has a huge financial
problem.’ Like many others, he fears that Japanese research could suffer
if Japan joins the SSC. ‘Basic science in Japan itself must be improved,
but at the same time we must increase our international contributions.
There are two issues but they are contradictory.’

American officials are putting a brave face on the agreement thrashed
out last week. ‘We are not disappointed,’ said Ed Malloy, science counsellor
at the US Embassy in Tokyo. ‘It doesn’t seem like much progress, but when
you look back on it we’ve come a long way.’