Kishida unveils relief package for fishery sector

In 2022, Japan's exports of agricultural and fishery products as well as processed food to China totaled 278.2 billion yen, with exports to Hong Kong at 208.6 billion yen, government data showed. Fishery items amounted to 87.1 billion yen and 75.5 billion yen, respectively.

administration has set up two separate funds, one amounting to 30 billion yen and the other 50 billion yen

Japan approach to all problem, government subsidy.

Japan lost from China and Hongkong ban in total 162.6 billion yen, what Japan do just setup subsidy equal almost half of it, 80 billion yen by using tax payer money.

Prime Minster Fumio Kishida on Thursday announced an additional rescue package for the fishery industry following China's import ban on Japanese seafood due to the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Should be exclusively garnished from the salaries of TEPCO execs and LDP bigwigs.

Not the wage-slaving public paying regressive taxes.

Kishida is going to purchase contaminated fish from Fukushima and provided to elementary schools and bento companies across the country to contaminate the rest of Japan.

The LDP likes to bribe voters to stay in power.

Totally outrageous.

What Kishida needs to do is take responsibility instead of passing the buck onto the taxpayer.

He needs to reach out to Xi, set up a meeting, and find a way to get the seafood import ban reversed. Explain the nature of the situation scientifically. Likely, Kishida will have to be willing to make some concessions such as partially or fully ending the tech exports rules to China.

Ultimately, China is Japan's neighbor and also it's largest trading partner. Contrary to what the crazy anti-China zealots constantly shriek, China is not going anywhere, and yes, Japan will need to learn to work cooperatively with them. Hating China is one thing but living in a nationalistic fantasy land is a whole quagmire in of itself.

They thought dumping it in the ocean was the least costly. Did they consider the cost of the subsidies?

From an NHK story

A seafood processing plant in Mie Prefecture, Japan, has been trying to expand exports to China for some time. Sho Nakazawa, head of the company's sales department, told NHK: "I am surprised by China's decision to suspend all imports of Japanese seafood. The Chinese market is huge and we are developing products to meet the needs of China, which means we were wasting our time before. I hope the government will take action as soon as possible to resume exports.

"If the import ban is extended, I won't be able to survive as a scallop fisherman." Masahiro Ogawa, a fisherman from Hokkaido, Japan, said he has spent two years growing scallops and hopes the Japanese government will take effective measures, as China is a major exporter of Hokkaido scallops.

The action the government should take is to keep the water within Japan or dump and dilute the treated contaminated water in Lake Inawashiro in Fukushima little by little over 30 years.

Just me but I think wild caught seafood off the east coast of Japan would be safer to eat than farmed fish swimming in still waters loaded with their feces and all the antibiotics and other supplements in their artificial feed, or farmed shrimp from China grown in basins beneath chicken coops.

Warning - in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, Fukushima and Tohoku beef was deliberately mislabelled and put onto the consumer markets for some unwitting souls to eat.

The same happened with other products from the disaster zone. Region of origin labels were falsified and contaminated products sold in supermarkets all over the country.

The only 100% safe way is to refrain from consuming seafood altogether.

My guess is that they will force this food on children via school lunch programs and seniors in care homes. Secondly, they will facilitate false labelling of products to hoodwink consumers.

Should be exclusively garnished from the salaries of TEPCO execs and LDP bigwigs.

Not the wage-slaving public paying regressive taxes.

exactly.

Kishida is going to purchase contaminated fish from Fukushima and provided to elementary schools and bento companies across the country to contaminate the rest of Japan.

wouldn't surprise me in the least.

The LDP likes to bribe voters to stay in power.

That's their whole playbook- that and some clever gerrymandering

Warning - in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, Fukushima and Tohoku beef was deliberately mislabelled and put onto the consumer markets for some unwitting souls to eat.

Same with 2001 with the BSE scare. J-beef was labeled as foreign beef.

PRINT THE FAKE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEXT 1 dollar = 300yen

Poorly invested money. They should know by now that people will not eat contaminated food from this area. They can do as my PR as they want and dance naked and try to bribe people, it will not change.

Government should use this money to provide training and propose new jobs for these people.

This was the obvious result though. Japan gov somehow acting like shocked pikachu meme now that all the countries around them are cutting off or curbing imports from the region, when they exactly said they would is so crazy.

You can’t force them to buy it either, especially China. They will 100% give the “lol yeah ok” if Japan tries to force them into some trade deal over seafood.

People are going to be cautious all over again right after they finally got back on track after a decade of import curbs from the region. And who could blame them.

Also japan continues to de-emphasize their scientific community and researchers so they can’t throw independent researchers at it either to gain clout domestically… maybe trying to convince international researchers to do studies would help but , where’s that as well?

TEPCO must pay!

Well Well Well. So where are those Japan's friends now？US/UK/Australia etc Anyone？Come on，help your friend Japan by purchase Japanese fish，don't let Japanese fisherman rely on the "evil China" market.

51% of TEPCO is owned by the government. TEPCO makes a profit.

Warning - in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, Fukushima and Tohoku beef was deliberately mislabelled and put onto the consumer markets for some unwitting souls to eat.

My guess is that they will force this food on children via school lunch programs and seniors in care homes. Secondly, they will facilitate false labelling of products to hoodwink consumers.

With current allocated 80 billion yen budget, they can do massive campaign at least domestically to make people eat sea food that being rejected outside Japan. Not only that they can force feed people with those budgets in cafeteria or bento in any school, government facility and military.

They also can forbid and shaming people or media who dare to question their origin of their sea food. So at some point nobody even dare talking about Fukushima food in japan.

Anyone who questioning, is that even possible? Look few years back, Tokyo Olympics where most of Japanese people just don't agree but Japanese media just keep pushing so people voice just become little noise.

@Roy Sophveason

Not necessarily a bribe, just heavily subsidized items that many businesses hard to resist, especially during current inflation environment like today.

It can be many schemes, for example they can offer tax break if a workplace cafeteria provide Fukushima food items with certain minimum percentage.

It's already happening where restaurant chain in Japan use Fukushima rice, if they have success story with rice, they can do with other Fukushima items.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/10354925/Japanese-fast-food-chain-to-grow-rice-close-to-Fukushima-nuclear-plant.html

It's also doesn't need to be clandestine, just see what happened when one of Japanese minister called "contaminated" water. It's only one week they already start to limit the damage in any way they can.

https://japantoday.com/category/politics/Kishida-tells-fisheries-minister-to-apologize-for-calling-Fukushima-wastewater-contaminated

wolfshineToday 07:44 am JST

He needs to reach out to Xi, set up a meeting, and find a way to get the seafood import ban reversed. Explain the nature of the situation scientifically.

Xi isn't interested in the science, or else he'd listen to the IAEA, including the Chinese experts that work there. He's interested in gaining political leverage over anyone and everyone.

Japan will need to learn to work cooperatively with them.

Xi isn't interested in cooperation. He's interested in domination.

The best thing for Japan to do is, as the wholesalers (and government) say, "broaden their sales routes, find new export destinations." It is total folly to rely on the Chinese government/market for anything at all, so consider the country a lost cause and move on to other countries that actually welcome you.

BigPToday 12:19 pm JST

TEPCO must pay!

Yes, they certainly must pay for their mistakes. And they are doing. See figures and plan here:

https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/newsroom/press/archives/2021/pdf/210721e0202.pdf

Ideally they would pay every single yen, but they don't have the capacity so the tax-payer has to pay the rest. Although it sticks in the craw, the best thing for the Japanese economy would be for TEPCO to do well as a business to lessen the burden on the tax-payer. It's a bad situation, but it's the actual one.

Fair. But why exactly should they resist food from Fukushima?

Same reason why you couldn't find easily any Fukushima origin in your local store.

Swift and thorough compensation? I’ll believe that when I see it. People still haven’t been compensated for Minamata over half a century ago. There are still tens of thousands waiting to compensated for the Fukushima meltdowns. More guff from the ministry of fairy tales.

Japan has claimed the water is safe, given that most radionuclides, except tritium, are removed through a purification process.

But it's not a given, they have to show that most radionuclides are removed

Roy Sophveason

Today 04:43 pm JST

But it's not a given, they have to show that most radionuclides are removed

> Absolutely! And they should get an independent third party involved to corroborate it! Why not ... hmm .. why not the IAEA? They should have the IAEA test the result and confirm that most radionuclides are removed! Maybe even not just the IAEA, maybe get half a dozen other laboratories involved, just to be sure!

> Yes, they should absolutely do that.

Yep they should.

Why don't you post the objectives and conclusions of that study that you have in mind go

Study? Who's talking about a study? They should test the water and then release the report!

Well show the report then

Well they musht have if you say the released wastewater is safe

The best thing for Japan to do is, as the wholesalers (and government) say, "broaden their sales routes, find new export destinations." It is total folly to rely on the Chinese government/market for anything at all, so consider the country a lost cause and move on to other countries that actually welcome you.

Since you're entertaining fantasies, here's one of my own: Japan should legalize recreational cannabis, and just do that as a means of making up what they're losing by not selling fish to China. Afterall it's kind of about time, don't we think?

Now in all seriousness, if you actually think it's possible to neglect a market of a billion and a half people... that is not rooted in reality. Ideally, I would personally like to see Japan sell its fish to the United States, but here's the thing: the American fishing industry is literally three times that of Japan. And if Japan were to try to cut into that market... I'd wager it might rub some folks the wrong way.

Also, although I'm still fondly eating Japanese seafood, I think the "Nippon Numbuh One!!" types are a little overly presumptuous in terms of how other countries outside of East Asia view their island. I'm not sure "Caught in clean, blue, ALPS treated water!" is necessarily going to be a successful sales pitch. It's a tough business - just ask the English. Big part of why they're not in the EU in 2023.

Again - China is not going anywhere. We need to acknowledge that first, and form our basis for how to approach the situation from there.

Dump now pay later.

Sorry, that would take political courage so it's unlikely to happen.

He needs to reach out to Xi, set up a meeting,

wolfshineToday 06:49 pm JST

a market of a billion and a half people...

A market that cannot be relied upon in any way, due to the CCP. A market of a billion and a half people is as useful as a market of zero people if the Emperor takes away access on a whim.

As I said, I do think the country is a lost cause, and I do think the best thing to do is find new export destinations. Expecting any kind of reasonable behavior from China is simply asking for trouble: no-one should be stupid enough to take the risk.

A poor decision for a nation renowned for its quality of seafood to allow its competitors to be be able to claim that for years its seafood will be poisoned.

A market that cannot be relied upon in any way, due to the CCP. A market of a billion and a half people is as useful as a market of zero people if the Emperor takes away access on a whim.

As I said, I do think the country is a lost cause, and I do think the best thing to do is find new export destinations. Expecting any kind of reasonable behavior from China is simply asking for trouble: no-one should be stupid enough to take the risk.

A market that cannot be relied upon in any way? Except for the fact that the Japanese already relied on this market for some fifty odd years before recently?

I didn't point out the fact that in your first response, you ignored my point that Japan put into place restrictions on tech exports to China, so China naturally fired back with this seafood ban. Japan also exclusively and unnecessarily forced Chinese nationals to take PCR tests upon arrival even after saying they were going to reopen the country to tourists; later, China banned Japanese travelers. In recent years, it seems like Japan has actually been doing a lot to provoke China, but when China responds in some manner, people treat Japan like its the victim in the relationship.

I think its possible to criticize what China does domestically and internationally, while recognizing the things that Japan does wrong. I can tell you, over the past three years, militaristic and xenophobic attitudes in Japan have very much been on the rise. In fact I don't even think the Japanese are as different from the Chinese as we're lead to believe, just western-affiliated. Taro Aso has been engaging in the same wolf-warrior rhetoric for quite some time; Japan also has their own army of foreign wumaos lining up to defend the land of the rising sun, regardless of moral dilemmas. And, whether people really want to admit it or not, Japan is also a (mostly) single party state run by old dudes.

Best to avoid unnecessary escalation where possible.

wolfshineToday 11:28 am JST

Except for the fact that the Japanese already relied on this market for some fifty odd years before recently?

Things are very different under Xi, who has taken China back to Mao's time. China was never very reliable; now it is totally unreliable.

you ignored my point that Japan put into place restrictions on tech exports to China, so China naturally fired back with this seafood ban.

Japan is not threatening anyone and everyone in the region, stealing their tech, cyberattacking them, setting up illegal police stations in their countries, and trying to steal their lands. China is.

Japan is releasing treated water, which is well within safety guidelines, under constant monitoring by the IAEA and independent laboratories. Compare that to China's COVID response: still to this day denying culpability, and using economic coercion against anyone who calls for a proper investigation (like Australia.) If the nuclear accident had happened in China, they'd still be denying it.

it seems like Japan has actually been doing a lot to provoke China

Not to me it doesn't. Perhaps to you it does.

I can tell you, over the past three years, militaristic and xenophobic attitudes in Japan have very much been on the rise.

Please provide a source for this. I'd like to read the info.

Best to avoid unnecessary escalation where possible.

I agree. It's a pity that Xi doesn't.

CKAIToday 01:09 pm JST

You dont read before posting.

"Temprorary no extra bonus for TEPCO shareholder preferred/common"

Big deal. No extra cash bonus day for holders.

How about tell em to stick it up shareholder craw?

I do read before posting. TEPCO still doesn't pay dividends. The shareholders are still receiving nothing, and likely won't for the foreseeable future:

https://www.tepco.co.jp/en/hd/about/ir/stock/dividends-e.html

Given such severe economic conditions and other factors, we deeply regret to pay out no year-end dividends for the current fiscal year.

In addition, with respect to dividend policy for fiscal 2023, it seems that severe management environments will continue, and we plan to pay out no interim or year-end dividends.

Suppliers should be required to attach a caught in alps treated waters to assure customers of the scientific safety of Fukushima fish.