HONG KONG — Japan has urged China to intervene against what it said was a growing wave of harassment targeting its citizens, including nuisance phone calls and stone throwing, after the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.
Japanese officials say that schools, businesses and government offices throughout the country have received thousands of harassing and sometimes abusive phone calls that appear to originate in China, where the government has expressed strong opposition to the water’s release and stoked public anger over it.
There have also been incidents of stones being thrown at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and a Japanese school in the Chinese coastal city of Qingdao.
Aug. 24, 202302:01
The situation is “extremely regrettable,” Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Tuesday, as he urged Beijing to take measures to ensure the safety of Japanese people and diplomatic missions in China.
Japan on Monday summoned the Chinese ambassador, who was “strongly” urged to call on Chinese people to act “calmly and responsibly,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters Monday.
The Japanese Embassy in Beijing had earlier advised Japanese citizens in China, where there have been violent anti-Japan protests in the past, to keep a low profile and avoid speaking Japanese loudly in public if they could avoid it.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Wenbin said Monday that he was unaware of reports of harassing phone calls from China to Japan and that the safety of foreigners in China was assured.
“China protects and ensures the safety and lawful rights and interests of foreign nationals in China in accordance with laws,” he said at a regular news briefing.
The Japanese diplomatic missions in Beijing and Qingdao did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hayashi also criticized a Chinese ban on all seafood imports from Japan, saying Tokyo could take the issue to the World Trade Organization.
“China should not raise concern unnecessarily based on unscientific information,” he said at a regular news briefing.
China announced the ban last Thursday, shortly after the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began gradually releasing an estimated 1.3 million metric tons of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.
Officials say the water’s release is necessary for the decommissioning of the plant, where a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami in 2011 set off a triple meltdown in the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 incident at Chernobyl.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
