Beijing continues attacks on decision to release waste water from plant after banning seafood imports and witnessing surge in anti-Japanese sentiment at home.
Diplomats from China and Japan have clashed at the United Nations over the decision to release waste water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant .
The row, which has seen Beijing ban all seafood imports from Japan and led to heightened anti-Japanese sentiment in China, is the latest blow to relations between the two countries, which have already been hit by Tokyo’s efforts to strengthen its military alliance with the United States.
China’s deputy permanent representative to the UN Geng Shuang condemned Japan’s “extremely self-serving and irresponsible” actions at a Security Council meeting on Friday, a day after the plant operator began to discharge treated radioactive water into the Pacific.
Geng also urged Japan to “rectify its wrong decision” and stop the discharge immediately.
“There is no precedent for the discharge of nuclear contaminated water into the ocean, nor is there a widely recognised disposal standard,” he said.
“The Japanese side has yet to address the major concerns of the international community about the long-term reliability of the water treatment equipment, the truthfulness and accuracy of the data on nuclear-contaminated water, and the soundness and effectiveness of the monitoring programme.”
Geng also said that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s widely cited assessment that the release would have a “negligible” impact on the environment, was “was not a licence” for Japan to dispose of the waste water.
“The report … does not absolve the Japanese side of its moral responsibility and obligations under international law,” he said.
Geng said that whatever Japan said, nothing “is going to change the fact that in the next 30 years, Japan will discharge millions of tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean and it will not change the fact that it is going to pose enormous risks to the environment, human health and so on”.
Japan’s ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane hit back at China’s “baseless allegations,” insisting that scientific evidence shows the discharges are safe.
