After the historic meeting between the Chinese president and his US counterpart, Xi Jinping shook hands with Japanese leader Fumio Kishida, with whom he does not have a comfortable relationship. There is a sense of distrust and hostility between the two, fueled not only by historical disagreements (such as Japan’s invasion of China) and territorial claims in the East China Sea, but also by trade frictions.
The final basis for the conflict is the Japanese government’s decision to release contaminated waters of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, hit by the triple disaster of March 2011, into the Pacific Ocean after the International Atomic Energy Agency (Aiea) gave the green light to the nuclear power plant. 2021 Tokyo management plan. The release of contaminated water alarmed the governments of neighboring countries about fish products coming from Japan. So much so that Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong (Tokyo’s historic trading partner) decided to ban seafood imports from the region around the Fukushima plant, citing food safety issues.
China, Hong Kong and Japan fight over fish
More dialogue yes, but with some differences
In the first face-to-face meeting in a year between the Japanese prime minister and the Chinese president on the sidelines of the Apec summit, the export file of Japanese fish products was at the center of the bilateral meeting between Kishida and Xi. In the United States, in San Francisco. Although the two leaders agreed to establish “mutually beneficial” bilateral relations based on common strategic interests, they failed to overcome hostilities over seafood. Japan’s prime minister has called for the immediate lifting of restrictions on imports of Japanese food as there is no scientific basis to limit trade in fish products from the archipelago. The request was rejected by the sender. Xi considered the spill of contaminated water a problem affecting “the health of all humanity” and called on Kishida to take into account “legitimate concerns at home and abroad.”
As previously reported, China banned all imports of Japanese seafood after Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the disaster-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific in August, with Beijing accusing Tokyo of treating the sea like a “sewage.” Tokyo has repeatedly reiterated that the discharge of treated water is safe, again based on the opinion of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency.
Why was wastewater released?
But let’s take a step back. The final report, submitted last July, said the UN agency described the Japanese administration’s plan as “in line with international safety standards” because the release of wastewater would have “negligible radiological impact on the population and the environment.” From the agency’s director general, Rafael Grossi, to Japanese Prime Minister Kishida. The release of wastewater will not occur immediately but gradually: the process will actually take at least 30 years.
The project, which has received approval from the UN organization, envisages Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Company), the operator of the nuclear power plant, to discharge 1.3 million tons of water stored in more than a thousand tanks on the site into the energy ocean. The storage capacity of the facility, which is equivalent to approximately 500 Olympic swimming pools, has now reached 98%. This is water used to cool the plant core and reduce radioactive hazard.
The plan involves Tepco treating wastewater to remove the most harmful components through its Alps system (Advanced liquid handling system) before releasing it into the Pacific. The water cleaning mechanism would remove most of the radioactive material, except for tritium, a hydrogen isotope thought to pose little danger to the human body when absorbed in small amounts and dissolved in large amounts of water. Precisely because of tritium, neighboring countries such as China, South Korea and North Korea objected to the Tokyo administration’s project to impose import restrictions on Japanese fish products.
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Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
