Beijing: China has officially lifted its ban on seafood imports from most regions of Japan, ending a two-year restriction that stemmed from environmental concerns over the release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
The ban will remain in place for 10 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, including Tokyo and Fukushima, while imports from other areas will ‘conditionally resume,’ according to a statement issued on June 29 by China’s General Administration of Customs.
Beijing’s move follows long-term monitoring results that found no abnormalities in the nuclear-contaminated water discharged from the Fukushima plant.
The ban was originally imposed in 2023, shortly after Japan began releasing more than a million tonnes of treated water into the Pacific Ocean, a process backed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and expected to continue over the next 30 years.
The Fukushima plant, located in northeast Japan, was severely damaged in 2011 when a powerful tsunami struck the region, causing three of its six nuclear reactors to suffer a meltdown, the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Since then, massive quantities of treated wastewater have accumulated onsite, leading to Japan’s controversial decision to discharge the filtered water into the ocean.
Although the IAEA and most global experts have confirmed the release poses minimal risk, some scientists remain cautious, citing a lack of long-term research on the environmental impact of such discharges into marine ecosystems.
China had harshly criticized Japan’s decision at the time, citing public health and environmental safety concerns, and swiftly enforced a blanket ban on Japanese seafood. The move significantly impacted Japan’s seafood industry, as China was previously its largest customer, purchasing nearly a quarter of its seafood exports.
Japan has welcomed China’s recent partial easing of the ban, calling it a ‘positive’ step forward.
Japanese officials reiterated their commitment to guaranteeing the safety and quality of seafood products while continuing to push Beijing to fully lift the remaining restrictions and reopen seafood trade with all Japanese regions.
Chinese authorities clarified that companies previously exporting to China must now reapply for registration and will be subject to strict supervision and regulatory compliance checks.
Despite close economic ties and strong trade volumes, China and Japan share a historically fraught relationship, strained by territorial disputes and Japan’s past military occupation of parts of China.
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