The issue of Japan’s nuclear waste water discharge has recently attracted attention, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian even claimed that “the Pacific Ocean is not Japan’s sewer. The foreign media criticized Zhao Lijian’s remarks as being out of line for a diplomat, and the Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso retorted, “Is the Pacific Ocean the sewer of China?”
Recently, the news that Japan is preparing to discharge 1.25 million tons of nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean has sparked controversy. The Japanese government says that the treated nuclear wastewater will emit up to 22 megabecks of liquid tritium per year, and the concentration will be diluted to 1,500 becquerels per liter, which is only 1/7th of the maximum tritium content of the WHO standard for potable water.
However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have made a lot of hype about this, with CCP Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian claiming at an April 14 press conference that “the ocean is not Japan’s garbage can, and the Pacific Ocean is not Japan’s sewer!” , “As for the individual Japanese official’s claim that this water is fine to drink, please ask him to drink it.”
Zhao Lijian’s aforementioned war-wolf style remarks once again excited some mainland Chinese netizens and even made it to the hot search. However, foreign media believe that Zhao Lijian’s words are strongly personal attacks, and such remarks by a spokesman of the foreign ministry of a normal country are obviously out of line and do not help to maintain the country’s image.
Zhao Lijian’s above remarks first angered Japan, and Japanese Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Taro Aso chided Zhao Lijian at a press conference on the 16th: “When you say ‘the Pacific Ocean is not Japan’s sewer,’ is it the Chinese Communist Party’s sewer? Isn’t it everyone’s ocean?”
Aso re-emphasized that for nuclear wastewater “we can dilute it to one-seventh of the World Health Organization standard, which is drinkable.”
An independent panel of experts commissioned by the Japanese government noted that the practice of discharging nuclear effluent into the ocean has long existed in many countries, including Japan. The experts did not name the Chinese Communist Party, which is in fact among the countries that have discharged nuclear effluent into the ocean.
According to Hong Kong’s ‘Crowd News,’ all 49 of mainland China’s existing nuclear power plants have dumped nuclear wastewater into the ocean.
According to the Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Corporation (HKNIC), a joint venture with the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station, liquid tritium emissions from the plant averaged 20 percent of the cap, or about 49.5 megabecks, over the past 10 years. This is more than one times the standard set by the Japanese government. But many Chinese netizens may not be aware of this.
In addition, the Daya Bay nuclear power plant has been the site of several nuclear leaks, with three leaks in 2010 alone.
The Chinese Communist Party has not made the leaks public, and has given each of its 100,000 residents a secret monthly “ecological protection fee” of 1,000 yuan to prevent local villagers from defending their rights.
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