China’s Increased Radiation Checks on Japanese Food Imports Worry Sushi Restaurants – News18

Its been just over three weeks since China increased checks on Japanese food imports over radiation concerns, but Kazuyuki Tanioka is already fearful for the future of his upscale Beijing sushi restaurant.

Like most restaurants in China, Tanioka’s eight-year-old Toya has struggled with years of COVID restrictions which only began to ease late last year. Now it is facing a shortage of both customers and seafood ahead of Japan’s plans to empty into the sea treated radioactive water from its disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.

“The hardest thing for us now is that we can’t purchase any Japanese seafood at all because it’s taking so long to clear Chinese customs,” said the 49-year-old chef-restauranteur from Kumamoto, southern Japan.

A spokesman for a large seafood trader said now the wait times at Chinese ports is around three weeks.

There has been extensive criticism of the Fukushima water release plan from China’s foreign ministry and in Chinese state media in recent months, and this coverage surged again around the time when and after the UN nuclear watchdog said it approved of the plan.

China is still Japan’s biggest seafood export market but posts and hashstags saying Japanese food is radioactive and should be boycotted are rife on Chinese social media. Japanese restaurants are taking a hit and Tanioka says customer numbers have plummeted by 90 percent in his case as a result.

Customers at Japanese restaurants and supermarkets in Beijing said they approved of the tighter scrutiny by the Chinese government, which maintains the water release poses a threat to the environment and human health and that if Japan goes ahead with its plan it must bear the consequences.

Customers which Reuters spoke to at Japanese restaurants and supermarkets in Beijing said they approved of the tighter scrutiny by the Chinese government.

“I think the measures we are currently taking on Japanese seafood products show a responsible attitude of the country towards its people,” said Duan, a Beijing resident who only provided his surname. “Because of the government’s policies, we can say that we feel relatively at ease.”

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – Reuters)