The Japanese government has called on China to “remove the restriction as soon as possible”, which it considers to have no scientific basis, said Japanese Government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno today at a press conference, revealing the filing of the complaint and describing Beijing’s decision as “regrettable”.
Japan also called on China to review the veto based on the rules of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a free trade agreement that both countries are associated with under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc.
Hours earlier, before leaving for Indonesia to participate in an ASEAN summit, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he hopes to explain to his Southeast Asian counterparts “in a transparent way the process of cleaning the waters” so that they “understand and cooperate in multilateral and bilateral meetings.”
On August 24, the company that owns the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which is in critical condition, began discharging treated water from the plant, which consists of water used to cool the damaged reactors and melted fuel, as well as water from rain that infiltrated the facilities and was contaminated and subsequently treated to remove dangerous radioactive elements.
The discharge of wastewater into the ocean is expected to continue for decades.
Since the plan became known, neighboring countries such as China have opposed the eviction for security reasons, despite it having been authorized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which states that it complies with international security measures and that the impact human and environmental will, in principle, be harmless.
Tokyo insists the water is safe, while Beijing has decided in response to impose an import ban on all marine products from the archipelago.
Japan also announced today an emergency fund to help exporters affected by the ban in mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong.
The fund will have a value of 20.7 billion yen (130.6 million euros).
The Japanese Prime Minister stated that the emergency fund comes in addition to the 80 billion yen (507 million euros) that the government previously allocated to these companies to combat the damage caused to the reputation of Japanese products.
*With Lusa
