Japan resumes Seafood Exports to China after Beijing eases 2023 ban.

Japan has resumed seafood shipments to China for the first time since Beijing banned imports in 2023 over the release into the sea of treated radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the government said Friday.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara told a press conference that the government takes it “positively” that six tons of frozen scallops from Japan’s northern main island of Hokkaido were shipped to China on Wednesday. Farm minister Norikazu Suzuki said at a separate news conference that 600 kilograms of salted sea cucumbers will follow on Monday.

China introduced a blanket ban in August 2023 as a demonstration of its strong opposition to the ocean discharge, which began that month, but the two countries agreed in June this year that Chinese imports of Japanese seafood would gradually resume.

Japanese exporters are required to register their facilities with the Chinese authorities and submit certificates for radioactivity inspection for their fishery products before shipping them. So far, only three facilities have been allowed to export, with registrations for hundreds more pending.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday at a regular press conference in Beijing, “If any risks are discovered, necessary import restriction measures will be taken immediately in accordance with the law“.

She expressed hope for continued international monitoring and China’s independent sampling of the water, adding Beijing will maintain strict supervision of Japanese seafood imports to ensure food safety for its people. A separate ban remains on imports of marine and other products from 10 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, including Fukushima, Miyagi and Tokyo, that was imposed after the earthquake in March 2011, and tsunami that triggered the nuclear disaster.

China’s resumption of Japanese seafood imports comes as the two neighbours aim to stabilise bilateral ties that have often been strained by issues related to territory and wartime history, at a time of intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry and trade tensions under U.S. President Donald Trump.

China has also completed a key step toward restarting Japanese beef imports, which were halted following the outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan in 2001, with Beijing finishing its domestic quarantine procedures in July, according to the Japanese government.

Kihara, the top government spokesman, said that Tokyo will continue to “strongly” urge Beijing to remove the remaining restrictions on 10 Japanese prefectures and resume beef imports.

Team Maverick