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Jack Lau

Agence France-Presse

China has agreed to address its ban on Japanese seafood, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in San Francisco.
China banned all seafood imports from Japan in August after it began to release treated waste water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Kishida said he discussed the waste water row with Xi when they met on Thursday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific economic leaders’ summit.
The two leaders agreed to seek ways “to find a resolution through consultation and dialogue based upon a constructive attitude”, Kishida said on Friday.
China had agreed to expert-level talks to address the issue, he said. “In the days ahead, discussions will take place based upon science at the experts’ level.”
Apec summit 2023: China, Japan leaders pledge to ‘coexist peacefully’
China, which has historic tensions with Japan, has accused Tokyo of treating the sea like its “private sewer”.
Japan insists that the discharge is safe, a view backed by the United Nations atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and promoted by the United States – a close Japanese ally.
Beijing’s statement on Thursday’s meeting made only a brief reference to the waste water dispute.
“Japan should take seriously the legitimate concerns at home and abroad and handle the issue properly in a responsible and constructive manner,” Xi was quoted as saying in the statement released by state news agency Xinhua.
Kishida said he called on China to make an “objective judgment” on the safety of Japanese seafood, a major industry for his country, while emphasising that he had no timeline to offer.
“Frankly, we are not at this point in a position to predict the timing of the lifting of the import restrictions,” he said.
Tokyo will, however, be “pressing the Chinese government” and taking measures to support Japanese fishers, Kishida added.
Since the March 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima plant, operators Tepco had pumped in around 1.3 billion litres (8.2 million barrels) of water to cool the damaged reactor cores. The water, contaminated with radioactive materials in the process, was passed through a filtration system that left behind two radioactive isotopes, tritium and carbon-14, according to Tepco.
The contaminated water was stored in more than 1,000 tanks, and space was running out. Japan began to release the water into the Pacific Ocean in August, after diluting it to less than one part per 100 parts seawater, saying it was an essential step towards decommissioning the stricken plant.


Tepco said the concentration of tritium after the dilution would be around 1,500 becquerels per litre, or 15 per cent of the World Health Organization guideline of 10,000 becquerels of tritium per litre of drinking water.
The release of the treated water is expected to take at least 30 years.
Tepco, however, has been criticised for not fully releasing test results for all radioactive particles known to be in the water.
Xi met several Asia-Pacific leaders including US President Joe Biden in San Francisco, mostly showing a softer side as China tries to calm tensions and focus on its faltering economy.
But tensions were palpable with Japan, as Kishida voiced alarm over Chinese military activity in waters near the island nation.


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China

Diplomacy

Kishida says he called for ‘objective judgment’ on Japanese seafood when he discussed Fukushima waste water row with Xi on Thursday
‘Japan should take seriously the legitimate concerns at home and abroad’, the Chinese president says in brief reference to the dispute


Kishida says he called for ‘objective judgment’ on Japanese seafood when he discussed Fukushima waste water row with Xi last week, while Xi urges Japan to address ‘legitimate concerns’.
