So all the people voting for this title on Reddit and Hacker News aren't making any statement on strict government regulation, they merely find it interesting that the Japanese have learned from their history?
You see what you want to see, even when it's not there. It's not very objective to assume there's a political agenda behind everything.
I find this story interesting both on an engineering level and as something news-worthy to explain how Japan may have been able to avoid a far greater tragedy.