US Sticks It to China by Buying Japan's Seafood

The U.S. has begun buying large amounts of Japanese seafood for its military forces to help counteract China's ban in response to Japan's release of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.

Japan in late August began a 17-day release of the first portion of the 1.34 million tons of wastewater—enough to fill 500 swimming pools—from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which experienced a nuclear meltdown following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.

China has banned seafood from Japan despite a two-year report by the International Atomic Energy Agency finding the treated water to be "consistent with international safety standards" while having a "negligible radiological impact to people and the environment."

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said in an interview with Reuters that Washington had bought about 1 ton of scallops. This was the first time the U.S. had purchased locally sourced seafood for U.S. Forces Japan.

While Emanuel said purchases would expand to other types of seafood and increase over time, the batch of scallops was just 1/100,000th of the amount China imported from Japan in 2022.

The loss of China is a blow to Japan. The world's second-largest economy was the most important destination for Japanese seafood and agricultural goods, accounting for 40 percent.

A frequent China hawk, Emanuel took to X, formerly Twitter, to say China was hypocritical for banning Japanese seafood while Chinese fishermen continue to bring in hauls from purportedly contaminated waters near Japan.

"Can't blame them since the fish is outstanding but can blame them for their hypocrisy," he said. "America is sending this fish to a more deserving market: our U.S. military service members and their families."

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Japan and U.S. Forces Japan for comment.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at Monday's press conference that the steps taken by China and "some countries" in response to the release of Fukushima water were "entirely legitimate, reasonable and necessary." He said there is now a stronger call for a global monitoring system and that Japan should work to prevent "irreversible consequences" wrought by the discharge.

Regarding Emanuel's comments, Wang said it was an ambassador's job to strengthen friendships, not "smear other countries and sow discords [sic]."

The ambassador responded to the jab the next day with a list of what he said are examples of Chinese forces "sowing discord."

"The [Chinese] foreign ministry spokesperson lecturing me on 'sowing discord?' Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black," Emanuel tweeted. He then cited China's territorial feuds with India, collisions with Philippine fishing boats, firing missiles into waters near Japan, and Chinese fighter pilots performing unsafe intercepts of U.S. military aircraft.

Although a number of countries in the region have expressed health concerns over the treated wastewater, only China has enacted a full ban on Japanese aquatic products, which Tokyo and its allies have called economic coercion.

Trade ministers of G7 countries meeting in the Japanese city of Osaka on Sunday released a joint statement condemning "weaponize[d] economic dependencies" and calling for "the immediate repeal of any such measures that unnecessarily restrict trade, including the newly introduced import restrictions on Japanese food products."

The Chinese Embassy in Japan hit back at the statement, saying it amounted to double standards.

It remains unclear whether Beijing's months of rhetoric and its ban on Japanese seafood has had a lasting impact on Chinese citizens.

In early October, a month and a half after Japan started releasing the Fukushima water, the country's media cited aviation authorities as saying they had not observed a significant drop in Chinese tourists arriving during China's Golden Week holiday.