China will resume Japanese seafood imports it banned in 2023 over worries about Japan's discharge slightly radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, a Japanese official said Friday.
China said their talks this week made “substantial progress” but did not confirm an agreement with Japan on the issue that has been a significant political and diplomatic point of tension.
Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said the agreement was reached after Japanese and Chinese officials met in Beijing and the imports will resume once paperwork is complete.
”Seafood is an important export item for Japan and a resumption of its export to China is a major milestone," Koizumi said.
Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya also welcomed the move, saying, “It will be a big first step that would help Japan and China to tackle a number of remaining issues between the two countries," such as disputes over territory, trade and wartime history.
But officials said China's ban on farm and fisheries products from 10 Japanese prefectures including Fukushima is still in place and that they will keep pushing toward their lifting.
China's General Administration of Customs, in a statement issued Friday, said the two sides on Wednesday held "a new round of technical exchanges on the safety issues of Japanese aquatic products ... and achieved substantial progress” but did not mention an agreement.
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How the disagreement over seafood imports began
China blocked imports of Japanese seafood because it said the release of the treated and diluted but still slightly radioactive wastewater would endanger the fishing industry and coastal communities in eastern China.
Japanese officials have said the wastewater will be safer than international standards and its environmental impact will be negligible. They say the wastewater must be released to make room for the nuclear plant’s decommissioning and to prevent accidental leaks.
Tokyo and Beijing since March held three rounds of talks on the issue before reaching the agreement on Wednesday on the “technical requirements” necessary for Japanese seafood exports to China to restart, Japan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It did not say how long it may take before the actual resumption.
Mainland China used to be the biggest overseas market for Japanese seafood, accounting for more than one-fifth of its seafood exports, followed by Hong Kong. The ban became a major blow to the fisheries industry, though the impact on overall trade was limited because seafood exports are a fraction of Japan’s total exports.
Japan’s government set up an emergency relief fund for Japanese exporters, especially scallop growers, and has sought alternative overseas markets.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, has said it would compensate Japanese business owners appropriately for damages from export bans.
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Why the wastewater is being treated and released into the sea
The nuclear plant had meltdowns in three reactors after being heavily damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan. Water used to cool the reactor cores has been accumulating ever since, and officials say the massive stockpile is hampering the cleanup of the site.
The wastewater was treated and heavily diluted with seawater to reduce the radioactivity as much as possible before Japan began releasing it into the sea in August 2023.
Last September, then-Prime Minster Fumio Kishida said the two sides reached “a certain level of mutual understanding” that China would start working toward easing the import ban and join the International Atomic Energy Agency's expanded monitoring of wastewater discharges.
People inside and outside Japan protested the initial wastewater release. Japanese fishing groups said they feared it would further damage the reputation of their seafood. Groups in China and South Korea also raised concerns.