Tokyo has urged Beijing to “ensure the safety of Japanese residents in China” after a wave of telephone harassment targeting businesses in Japan sparked by the controversial discharge of Fukushima wastewater.
While Japan insists the release of the treated water is safe - a view backed by the UN’s nuclear watchdog - China has staunchly opposed it and banned all Japanese seafood imports, saying it contaminates the ocean.
The Japanese government on Sunday (Aug 27) published new data showing waters off Fukushima continued to post radioactivity levels well within safe limits.
Based on my experience living in China, even if the government or local industries did release stats of this nature, take it with a mountain of salt.
It took far too long for the government to even acknowledge that there were problems with air quality in urban centers, and that was plain as day (or…lack thereof) for all to see. And even still there are instances of poor air quality being misreported.
For something like ocean pollution, which the average person has almost no personal exposure to, a problem may as well not exist if no one notices. And now if someone does notice, well, China now has a convenient scapegoat in Japan.