China is temporarily banning all food imported from Japan from the sea. Beijing is very concerned about the discharge of sewage from the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. With the new measure, the Chinese government wants to counter the risks around radioactive pollution, the country’s customs department reported.
Japan started the controversial discharge of the waste water on Thursday. That water cooled the nuclear power plant after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which severely damaged the plant. The water has been cleaned and is to be discharged gradually into the sea over a period of about 30 years.
But neighboring countries are deeply concerned. China earlier warned to take “all necessary steps” to ensure food safety. China’s Ministry of Environment and Ecology announced stricter monitoring of radiation levels in national waters.
China earlier banned food imports from 10 prefectures around the Fukushima nuclear power plant. City state Hong Kong banned imports of fish and other seafood from the same prefectures.
The import bans could directly affect sushi restaurants in China and Hong Kong, which get much of their fish and seafood from Japan. “About 80 per cent of all seafood we use comes from Japan,” a Hong Kong caterer for Japanese food told AFP news agency.
