China accused Japan on Tuesday of arbitrarily dumping contaminated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea after Tokyo announced the start of operations this week.
“The ocean is the property of all mankind, it is not a place where Japan can arbitrarily discharge polluted water,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a press conference.
“The Chinese government insists that people come first and will continue to take whatever measures it deems necessary to safeguard the food safety and health of Chinese citizens,” Wang Wenbin added.
“We ask Japan to abandon this plan,” the Chinese spokesman reiterated, in the latest appeal to Tokyo to abandon an initiative that, according to Beijing, “causes multiple concerns in the international community.”
Tokyo announced the date of the first water spill on Tuesday, some three months after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the Japanese plan meets agreed standards for such cases.
However, Japan’s plan has sparked anger in neighboring countries, including China and South Korea, which as early as July urged Tokyo not to go ahead with the downloads.
The release of water, which should start from Thursday, begins almost 12 and a half years after the March 2011 nuclear meltdown, triggered by a strong earthquake and tsunami.
Chinese authorities have also said they will maintain a “high degree of vigilance” over food imports from Japan.
Since 2011, China has maintained a ban on importing food from a dozen of the 47 provinces that make up the island nation, including Fukushima, and has strictly reviewed all documentation for food arriving from other parts of Japan, especially food aquatic. origin.
Although several countries have lifted many of their restrictions in recent years, China only resumed imports of rice from the Japanese province of Niigata in 2018.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said today that the spill was “irresponsible” and “risky”.
The official asked the government departments of that Chinese special administrative region to impose controls on products of aquatic origin from Japan, to “guarantee the food safety and health” of the population.
Source: TSF
