The release of water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the oceanin northeastern Japan, is expected to begin on Thursday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced today, immediately triggering restrictions on Japanese food imports from Hong Kong and condemnation from China.

This plan was approved in early July by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Tokyo assures that it is harmless to the environment and human health. However, this operation, which is expected to last decades, is causing strong concerns and criticism, especially from China.

“The ocean belongs to all mankind, it is not a place where Japan can arbitrarily dump polluted waters,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin later complained.

Beijing has already banned food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima, since last month, and is moving ahead with checks for radioactivity in food coming from the rest of the country.

Hong Kong will also “immediately” implement restrictions on food coming from Japan, its chief executive John Lee announced today.

Tokyo predicts the release of more than 1.3 million tons of water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. This is rainwater, groundwater and water used to cool the power plant’s reactor cores that were damaged after the March 2011 tsunami that swept the country’s northeast coast.

These waters have previously been treated to get rid of their radioactive substances, with the exception of tritium, which cannot be removed with existing technologies.

According to experts, only doses with a high concentration of tritium are harmful to health.

Also Tepco, the company that runs the Fukushima nuclear power plant, envisages a phased discharge into the ocean by the early 2050s of a maximum of 500,000 liters per day, followed by dilution to reduce the level of tritium in the water to well below national levels. limits for this category.

Japanese fishermen are worried

Japan therefore states that this operation poses no threat to the marine environment and human health. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which oversees the plan, shares the same view and gave the go-ahead in July.

The operation will begin on Thursday “weather permitting,” according to Kisida.

Japan’s prime minister announced the plan to dump the waters a day after securing what the government said was “some understanding” from the fishing industry, although the fishing association said it still feared the damage to its reputation would the livelihoods of people in the industry.

IAEA staff are working there to ensure the project “remains in compliance with safety rules”, and will also make “real-time and near-real-time” monitoring data available to the international community, the agency said in a statement today. Tepco and Japan’s fisheries agency will also post monitoring data online.

“The Japanese government has chosen the wrong solution — decades of deliberate radioactive contamination of the marine environment — at a time when the world’s oceans are already under great pressure,” Greenpeace said today.

The Japanese fishing industry, for its part, fears damaging consequences for the image of its products, in the eyes of Japanese consumers as well as abroad.

“We still oppose the discharge of the water” because “scientific safety does not necessarily equate to a sense of safety in society,” Japan’s fishing industry spokesman Masanobu Sakamoto said after a meeting with Kishida on Monday.

China

Japan will demand an end to Chinese trade restrictions by presenting “scientific evidence”, Kishida assured today.

The Japanese prime minister also pledged to take measures to support the Japanese fishing industry, encouraging its production and domestic consumption of its products, as well as opening new markets for exports. A fund of 30 billion yen (about 190 million euros) is also planned to help local fishermen deal with damage to the reputation of their products.

China’s fears may be genuine, but its strong tone is probably also explained by geopolitical and economic tensions between Beijing and Tokyo, according to James Brady, an analyst at research firm Teneo.

Beijing may therefore “exploit” the Fukushima water issue by attempting to “exacerbate” Japan’s internal divisions over the issue, exert “some pressure” on Japanese foreign trade, and attempt to disrupt the recent warming of relations between Tokyo and Seoul, Brady noted, answering a question from AFP.

THE South Korea has expressed no objection to the Japanese plan, although the South Korean population is also concerned.

Seoul said today that it sees no problem with the scientific or technical aspects of Japan’s plan to dump the water into the ocean, but noted that this does not necessarily mean it supports it.

President Yun Suk-yeol’s administration is trying to strike a delicate balance on the issue as it seeks to improve relations with Japan while the risk of a wider consumer backlash at home remains.