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China urges Japan not to arbitrarily dump nuclear-contaminated water: Chinese officials at IAEA meeting

By Global Times, Mar 07, 2023

Two Chinese officials on Monday urged Japan not to arbitrarily start dumping nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station into the Pacific Ocean, criticizing move “an extremely irresponsible act that has drawn grave concerns from the international community and relevant countries.”

Liu Jing, deputy director of the China Atomic Energy Authority, told a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors that Japan’s nuclear-contaminated water dump plan is not purely a domestic matter, but concerns the global marine environment and public health, Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday morning.

Liu said the IAEA has neither completed its assessment of Japan’s disposal plan nor drawn specific conclusions, and all its three reports published so far pointed out the plan’s non-compliance with the agency’s safety standards and suggested improvement.

However, Japan has arbitrarily approved its own plan and expedited the construction of discharge facilities, ignoring the authoritative advice from the IAEA and the opposition from both home and abroad, Liu said.

Noting that China supports the IAEA’s work on Japan’s discharge plan, the Chinese nuclear official said he hopes the agency will continue to perform its duties in an objective and impartial manner, listen to the opinions of stakeholders, strictly implement the agency’s safety standards and international good practices, and help the international community ensure absolute safety.

Liu stressed that Japan’s plan to dump contaminated water into the ocean is not the only feasible way of disposal, and Japan should not use the assessment from the IAEA technical task force as a free pass on its discharge plan.

He urged Japan not to distort the reports of the IAEA task force to justify its discharge plan, nor ignore suggestions from the task force, nor set a deadline for the release of the task force’s final assessment report.

Noting that the disposal of the contaminated water will span a long time and involve many uncertainties, he said that Japan should allow effective international supervision on the water disposal, address the legitimate concerns of its neighbors and Pacific island countries, and hold meaningful consultations with stakeholders…………..  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202303/1286787.shtml

March 7, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized