Fukushima water release prompts abusive calls from China

Tokyo’s embassy in Beijing has urged its citizens there to behave with caution and avoid speaking their native tongue “loudly unnecessarily”, while a number of Japanese companies continue receiving abusive calls in the wake of the Fukushima wastewater release.

Beijing Accused Of Hypocrisy

While Japan insists the treated radioactive water is safe – a view supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency – China has staunchly opposed the discharge that began last week and imposed an immediate blanket ban on all Japanese seafood imports.

The Japanese government released new data on Sunday showing radioactivity levels in waters off Fukushima remained within safe limits. While China calls the release “selfish”, its own nuclear power plants have been accused of releasing water with relatively high levels of tritium.

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) is releasing over 500 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of treated wastewater used to cool damaged reactors at the now-crippled Fukushima Daiichi. A powerful quake and tsunami that killed about 18,000 people in Japan in March 2011 also hit the plant.

Rise In Anti-Japanese Sentiment

Japanese businesses and groups, ranging from an aquarium in Iwate to a concert hall in the capital, have reported receiving scores of calls from Chinese speakers that they had difficulty operating. Similar incidents have reportedly disrupted operations in Japanese facilities in China.

A Fukushima businessperson said his four restaurants and pastry shops had to unplug their phones as they received a total of round 1,000 calls on Friday, mostly from China, according to Kyodo. Beijing has been urged to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals in the country.

Chinese netizens uploaded videos of themselves making calls to Japanese numbers. Last week, Japanese schools in two locations in China were hit with a rock and eggs, the news agency cited government sources as saying. No one was reportedly hurt in the incidents.