China to ‘gradually’ lift ban on Japanese seafood imports

It imposed the ban in August last year after Japan started releasing treated radioactive wastewater.
By Taejun Kang for RFA
2024.09.20
Taipei, Taiwan
China to ‘gradually’ lift ban on Japanese seafood imports Fishery workers sort out seafood in Soma city, Fukushima prefecture, on Sept. 1, 2023
STR/Jiji Press/AFP

China has agreed to “gradually resume” imports of Japanese seafood products a year after it banned them in response to the release of treated waste water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The decision was made after “rounds of talks” between Beijing and Tokyo over the impact of discharging the waste water into the Pacific Ocean, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

“Following the implementation of monitoring activities, including participation in long-term international monitoring within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and independent sampling by participating countries, we will begin to adjust relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese seafood that meet the standards,” the ministry said. 

“Japan has made it clear that it will continue to conduct ongoing marine environment and marine ecological impact assessments in order to substantially fulfill its obligations under international law and to use its utmost efforts to avoid adverse impacts on human health and the environment,” it added. 

The tentative seafood import agreement came as Beijing and Tokyo work to avert a new diplomatic crisis over the stabbing death on Wednesday of a 10-year-old Japanese schoolboy in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

The stabbing, the third high-profile attack on foreigners in China in recent months, prompted Tokyo to call on China to ensure the safety of more than 100,000 Japanese citizens who live in the country.

In a reminder of longstanding acrimony over historical grievances, the attack took place on the 93rd anniversary of the 1931 Mukden Incident, the faked Japanese bombing of a railroad track in northeastern China that Japan used as an excuse to invade Manchuria.

In addition to history, the two Asian powers are embroiled in territorial disputes over islands and waters in the East China Sea.

Some analysts blame years of anti-Japanese propaganda churned out by the Chinese Communist Party for stirring up nationalistic anger that sometimes leads to violence.

China has imposed a blanket ban on imports of Japanese seafood since the beginning of the treated water discharge in August last year, calling the water “nuclear-contaminated.” Japan has insisted the water is safe.

Chinese trade statistics show that no fishery products, except aquarium fish, have been imported from Japan since September last year, forcing restaurants in China to get their ingredients elsewhere.

Some other countries also restricted seafood imports from Japan after it began  releasing the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, badly damaged by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, but most have since lifted those curbs. 

Japan started the gradual release of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean despite regional and domestic concerns, with plans to eventually pump more than a million metric tons of it into the sea.


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The release came 12 years after a nuclear meltdown at the plant following its battering by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. According to authorities, the water used to cool the nuclear reactors and additional groundwater and rainwater seeping into the reactor buildings has reached near-full storage capacity.

The water was processed through an advanced liquid processing system to remove most contaminants, except for relatively nontoxic tritium, before being released into the Pacific.

At that time, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the planned discharge of wastewater met international safety standards and would have a “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment.

The Japanese government said no abnormalities had been detected in the monitoring of seawater around the plant, including the concentration levels of tritium, since the discharge began. 

Edited by Mike Firn.

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