China set to resume imports of Japanese seafood halted over Fukushima water discharge

Visitors check seafood sold at the seafood market 'Lalamew' near the Onahama fish port in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, on Oct. 19, 2023 in Iwaki, northeastern Japan. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

TOKYO — China will resume Japanese seafood imports it banned in 2023 over worries about Japan’s discharge of treated but slightly radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea, a Japanese minister said Friday.

Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said the agreement was reached after officials met in Beijing and the imports will resume once paperwork is complete.

China said 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.

”Seafood is an important export item for Japan and a resumption of its export to China is a major milestone," Koizumi said.

Japan’s 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.”

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 said in a statement Friday that the two sides had 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.

Disagreement over seafood imports

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 have held three rounds of talks since March on the issue before reaching the agreement this week 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 its 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.

‘Mutual understanding’

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.

By Mari Yamaguchi