South Korea Bans Japanese Seafood over Fukushima Wastewater Dump

Fears among Japanese fishermen that the planned release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear reactor could ruin their industry grew over the weekend as Chinese consumers announced they will boycott Japanese seafood, while South Korea said it will be banned outright.

Japan plans to discharge over a million metric tons of water used to cool down the reactors at the Fukushima plant after it was catastrophically damaged by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The water has been held in giant storage tanks for years, but the tanks are now at 97 percent capacity and will become incapable of holding more water sometime next year.

Japanese scientists have treated the wastewater to the point where it contains only trace amounts of tritium, the one radioactive element that is almost impossible to purge from large volumes of water. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has been testing the water and has not yet found any dangerous concentration of radioactive contaminants. Nuclear scientists around the world have said Japan’s plan to slowly discharge treated water into the Pacific Ocean is completely safe.

These reassurances have not been accepted by Japan’s neighbors, whose attitudes range from apprehension in Taiwan to bitter anger in China and near-panic in South Korea. For example, South Koreans have been stockpiling sea salt in anticipation of production ceasing after the Fukushima water is released.

On Monday, the legislative floor leader of the governing People Power Party in South Korea, Rep. Yun Jae-ok, told reporters that if Japan goes ahead with the Fukushima release, Japanese seafood will be “indefinitely banned until people’s concerns are laid to rest.”

The half-life of tritium is about 12 years, but Yun said it might take even longer before South Korean consumers are ready to dine on Japanese seafood again.

“No matter whether it takes 10, 20, 30, 50 or even 100 years, the duration is not important. The government will make preparations with a firm view that anything unsafe should not happen with regard to people’s food,” Yun vowed.

South Korea also banned seafood imports from the eight Japanese prefectures closest to Fukushima in 2013 over radiation concerns due to the damage the Fukushima plant took in 2011.

Imports from other parts of Japan fell by 30 percent last month as apprehension about the wastewater release grew.

China’s state-run Global Times reported Sunday that Chinese social media users are calling for a “widespread boycott of Japanese products” to protest the Fukushima action.

“Waves of boycotts of Japanese goods have emerged among the Chinese public in recent weeks, with particular emphasis on Japanese cosmetics and food products,” the Global Times wrote.

Chinese “netizens” have curated lists of Japanese products to avoid. The suggested alternatives are mostly European in origin, although the boycott organizers suggested Chinese products when available.

“The ocean belongs to all human beings, not solely to Japan. How could they be so irresponsible to put everybody’s health at risk just to satisfy its own selfish needs? What a shame!” a boycott enthusiast raged on Chinese social media.

According to the Global Times, these irate Chinese consumers simultaneously demanded the IAEA give the most rigorous possible review of Japan’s handling of the Fukushima water before signing off on a discharge plan and announced they would dismiss any favorable IAEA review as a whitewash, probably orchestrated by the sinister United States government as a scheme to irradiate Chinese seafood restaurants.

“To a large extent, many U.N. agencies including the IAEA are under the influence of the U.S., and receive a major share of operational funding from the U.S. In such a situation, they may have to make compromises and concessions,” warned Chinese missile technology and nuclear strategy expert Yang Chengjun.

The Japanese fishing industry is well aware of its peril. Sakamoto Masanobu, president of Japan’s National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, restated his group’s firm opposition to the wastewater release plan last week. He also handed Economy and Trade Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi a written copy of the opposition statement, including a promise to hold the government accountable if the release destroys Japanese fisheries.

“Whether to release the water into the sea or not is a government decision, and in that case we want the government to fully take responsibility,” Sakamoto said after meeting with Nishimura.

Nishimura responded that releasing Fukushima water into the ocean is “unavoidable in order to achieve decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi and reconstruction of Fukushima.” He added that the government is concerned about the livelihood of fishermen and would approach the Fukushima project with an eye toward keeping their industry viable.

Japanese fishing communities and corporations have opposed the Fukushima wastewater release plan since 2019, when government officials made their first projections about the storage tanks running out of room in a few years. The original estimate was that the tanks would hit 100 percent capacity in 2022. The current wastewater release plan was announced in April 2021.

The Lowy Interpreter noted on Sunday that Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio is caught between the demands of nuclear physics and incendiary regional politics as he nervously watches those Fukushima storage tanks chug closer to 100 percent capacity:

Within Japan, Kishida’s approval ratings have recently declined over unpopular domestic policies, raising questions of whether he will call a snap election to seek a fresh mandate. In this context, approving the release of the contaminated water before ameliorating domestic opposition from the fishing industry and others may present a meaningful threat to his own political future.

At the international level, approving the release plan risks derailing the recent rapprochement between Japan and South Korea, whose relationship has long been tense for historical reasons. It could also undermine decades of effort that Japan has put into building its status as a trusted partner for the Pacific Island countries, as well as its desire to create a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”.  

A firm date for the wastewater release has not been set, but officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which operates the Fukushima facility, said the process will probably begin this summer and take almost a decade to complete. 

Yamaguchi Natsuo, head of a junior party in the ruling coalition, said on Monday it would be better to wait until the “swimming season” is over. July and August are the prime months for swimming in Japan, although sometimes the weather is agreeable enough to keep it going into mid-September.