NEW DELHI
:
Schools, hotels, restaurants and even companies in Japan have been recipients of some rather galling calls lately. Callers from China swearing at people across the sea have clogged Japanese phone lines. The reason for their anger? Japan’s decision to release water from the disaster-struck Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear facility into the Pacific Ocean. Though all radioactive elements have been removed except tritium, which remains limited to levels not considered harmful, China is protesting a possible contamination of seawater and has even banned seafood imports from Japan. Tokyo, though, has the UN atomic watchdog in concurrence that the plant’s over 1.3 million cubic metres of water is safe to release, slowly, a process which may take 30 years. Such actions ought to follow the approval of all stakeholders. To the extent it leaves even an iota of possibility of affecting marine and other life, Chinese protests may be justified. But that’s no reason for people in China to make angry calls to Japanese folks who had no direct say in their country’s decision. As Japan is a democracy, trying to sway its public opinion on the issue would be considerably more effective.
