Since Japan announced in August 2023 that it would cool and discharge nuclear wastewater into the sea, China immediately announced that it would not import any Japanese marine products, and a large number of claims promoting the horror of Japanese nuclear wastewater appeared in the Chinese public opinion arena, such as causing surrounding fish to mutate, leading to cancer, and so on. Subsequently, the Chinese government also requested separate testing of nuclear treated water around Fukushima, but was rejected by Japan on the grounds of infringing sovereignty—after all, such separate testing results would be decided by China. However, a few months later, the bourgeois governments of China and Japan once again demonstrated their lack of principles in politics— as Japan’s bourgeoisie shifted its attitude towards China and the pro-China Prime Minister Shinzō Abe took office, the Japanese government agreed to allow China to independently test the nuclear treated water near Fukushima. Meanwhile, China, aiming to counter U.S. imperialism, hurried to ease its relations with Japan. As a result, Chinese nationalists were allowed to call and bombard Japanese restaurants, embassies, and government agencies; in the public opinion arena, they attacked the “radiation exceeding standards” of nuclear wastewater for over a year. On January 23, 2025, it was announced that the results of independent testing showed “no abnormalities,” turning the entire matter into a ridiculous farce.
In fact, China’s self-sufficiency rate for aquatic products has been close to or even exceeding 100% for many years, and it does not need to rely on imports from Japan. Japanese seafood is also sold as a high-end food in China, but very few people actually eat it. Instead, China + Hong Kong account for 46% of Japan’s seafood export market. After China (including Hong Kong) banned imports of Japanese seafood, China’s seafood market was not significantly affected, but Japan’s seafood exports to China suffered a severe blow, decreasing from over 85 billion yen before the ban to 3.5 billion yen in the first half of 2024. It is evident that China’s move was simply to use the issue of discharging nuclear wastewater to strike Japan. Now that China and Japan are temporarily leaning towards collusion, China can independently test the nuclear wastewater and lift the ban. As for the actual impact of nuclear wastewater on marine life and humans, the bourgeois governments of both countries naturally do not care.
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