AP and Xinhua

The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, September 21, 2024, p. 19

Tokyo – Japan and China reached an agreement yesterday on the discharge of waste water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean, prompting Beijing to ban Japanese fishery products.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the two sides reached a certain level of mutual understanding under which China will ease its import ban and join expanded monitoring of wastewater discharges from Fukushima under the United Nations atomic agency’s programme.

On August 24, 2023, Japan began discharging treated radioactive wastewater from the plant, which was damaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. In response, China blocked imports of Japanese seafood on the grounds that the release would endanger the fishing industry and coastal communities in eastern China.

China firmly opposes Japan’s unilateral move to begin unloading, and this position remains unchanged.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said, adding that the purpose of announcing the agreement reached with Japan is to urge Tokyo to fulfill its obligations under international law and its responsibility to oversee security.

The spokeswoman said she hopes the international community will work with China to closely monitor Japan’s compliance with its commitments.

Naturally, we understand that China will steadily resume imports of Japanese marine products. that meet Chinese standards in the same way as other products from other countries, Kishida said.

He stressed that the safety of Japanese water discharges has been demonstrated and that he will continue to demand the immediate lifting of the ban by China, which he described as unscientific.

Japan hopes that this breakthrough with China will lead Hong Kong, Macau and Russia to lift their bans as well.