China dares Japanese officials to drink Fukushima wastewater

The Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power station.

Photographer: Toru Hanai / Bloomberg

China is increasing pressure on Japan’s plan to release treated water from the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean and is asking government officials to drink the liquid to prove its safety.

“Japanese politicians have said that treated wastewater is ‘innocent’, why do they not drink, boil and not even wash clothes with the water?” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Twitter on Thursday. Questioned on Friday about the comments, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso left questions, saying water levels in Fukushima are below international guidelines.

Japanese politicians have said that treated wastewater is “innocent”, why don’t they drink, boil and not even wash clothes with the water? They must guarantee that seafood will not be contaminated; accepts the advice of IAEA and sets up a technical working group with China and ROK to conduct assessment. pic.twitter.com/6OvsQP9UaD

– Lijian Zhao @ (@ zlj517) 15 April 2021

Tokyo’s plan to release wastewater into the Pacific Ocean was announced on Tuesday criticized by China, Taiwan, South Korea and North Korea.

Aso said the water seems safe enough to drink. The US State Department indicated that the plan appears to be in line with global discharge standards. The International Atomic Energy Agency supports the planned releases, which will not start in two years and are expected to take decades.

Contaminated water storage tanks stand in TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in 2017.

Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg

The US Food and Drug Administration maintains import restrictions on some Fukushima food products due to potential radioactive contamination, according to the department’s website.

It has long been asked to prove the safety of the treated groundwater flowing through the devastated Fukushima plant. A ruling party official drank a glass of water collected in the reactor building at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in 2011 to advance the government’s claims that the disinfection efforts are progressing.

– With help by Colum Murphy and Yuko Takeo

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