Following the release of wastewater from Fukushima, China has agreed to hold expert-level talks to remove the embargo on Japanese seafood, according to a statement made by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Friday.
After Japan started releasing cleaned effluent from the nuclear plant damaged by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, China banned all seafood imports from Japan in August.
Kishida claimed that during their meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the fringes of an Asia-Pacific summit in San Francisco on Thursday, he brought up the wastewater dispute.
Kishida said he and Xi agreed to “seek to find a resolution through consultation and dialogue based upon a constructive attitude.”
“In the days ahead, discussions will take place based upon science at the experts’ level,” Kishida told a news conference.
China, which has historic tensions with Japan, has accused Tokyo of treating the sea as a “sewer.”
Japan insists that the discharge is safe, a view backed by the UN atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and promoted by the United States, Japan’s close ally.
Kishida called on China to make an “objective judgment” on the safety of seafood, which is a major industry in Japan.
“Frankly, we are not at this point in a position to predict the timing of the lifting of the import restrictions,” Kishida said.
“However, the government will be pressing the Chinese government” and taking measures to support Japanese fishermen, he said.
In San Francisco, Xi met with US President Joe Biden and generally shown a more accommodating side as China attempts to defuse tensions and concentrate on its struggling economy.
However, there was a noticeable rift with Japan when Kishida expressed concern about Chinese military maneuvers in Japanese territorial seas.
