Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2023 8:48:11 GMT
In the busy streets of Hong Kong’s Central district the lunchtime queues snake around the swanky Japanese restaurants where high-end sushi can sell at $150 a pop just for a tasting menu.
At Fumi, one of the more popular joints, the floors are packed with over a hundred people chattering away and chowing down.
“It’s just as busy as ever,” says Thomason Ng, Fumi’s general manager. “Only a small portion of people have asked where the food is from. They’re here for the dining experience and great hospitality alongside the food.”
The great economies of Asia are clashing over the sea once again, but from the look of these customers either nobody told them, or they simply don’t care.
The move by Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, to release more than 1 million metric tons of treated radioactive waste water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea has prompted a furious response from its neighbor and longtime rival China, the world’s second-largest economy.
Soon after Japan began pumping the water into the ocean on Thursday, China announced that it would ban all seafood imports from its neighbor – vastly extending earlier restrictions it had implemented on sea food imports from Fukushima prefecture in the wake of the plant’s meltdown in 2011.
Hours before China’s announcement, the Asian financial center of Hong Kong – a semi-autonomous Chinese city – imposed its own ban on aquatic product imports from 10 Japanese regions including Tokyo and Fukushima.
But while the well-heeled, international crowds populating Hong Kong’s sushi joints may have largely shrugged off the local government’s warnings, on the Chinese mainland the public’s reaction has been rather less forgiving.
Calls for boycott
Chinese media – traditional and social – has exploded with anger at Japan’s actions, with several state media outlets running critical editorials and opinion polls. A hashtag blasting the release gained more than 800 million views on the Chinese social media platform Weibo within just a few hours of Thursday’s release.
China insists the ban is necessary “to prevent the risk of radioactive contamination of food” and has accused Japan of an “extremely selfish and irresponsible act that disregards the international public interest.” It has repeatedly rejected Japan’s claims that the water has been adequately treated and contains negligible amounts of radioactivity.
Many users on Chinese social media – or at least the vocal ones – appear to support their government’s position, while many more have called on authorities to go a step further with a more wide-ranging boycott.
“We should ban all Japanese products,” read one top comment on Weibo. “The Japanese are irresponsible,” read another.
Japanese entities suffered a wave of harassment phone calls originating from China, prompting Japan’s vice foreign minister Masataka Okano to summon the Chinese ambassador over what he called an “extremely regrettable and worrisome” situation.
At Fumi, one of the more popular joints, the floors are packed with over a hundred people chattering away and chowing down.
“It’s just as busy as ever,” says Thomason Ng, Fumi’s general manager. “Only a small portion of people have asked where the food is from. They’re here for the dining experience and great hospitality alongside the food.”
The great economies of Asia are clashing over the sea once again, but from the look of these customers either nobody told them, or they simply don’t care.
The move by Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, to release more than 1 million metric tons of treated radioactive waste water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea has prompted a furious response from its neighbor and longtime rival China, the world’s second-largest economy.
Soon after Japan began pumping the water into the ocean on Thursday, China announced that it would ban all seafood imports from its neighbor – vastly extending earlier restrictions it had implemented on sea food imports from Fukushima prefecture in the wake of the plant’s meltdown in 2011.
Hours before China’s announcement, the Asian financial center of Hong Kong – a semi-autonomous Chinese city – imposed its own ban on aquatic product imports from 10 Japanese regions including Tokyo and Fukushima.
But while the well-heeled, international crowds populating Hong Kong’s sushi joints may have largely shrugged off the local government’s warnings, on the Chinese mainland the public’s reaction has been rather less forgiving.
Calls for boycott
Chinese media – traditional and social – has exploded with anger at Japan’s actions, with several state media outlets running critical editorials and opinion polls. A hashtag blasting the release gained more than 800 million views on the Chinese social media platform Weibo within just a few hours of Thursday’s release.
China insists the ban is necessary “to prevent the risk of radioactive contamination of food” and has accused Japan of an “extremely selfish and irresponsible act that disregards the international public interest.” It has repeatedly rejected Japan’s claims that the water has been adequately treated and contains negligible amounts of radioactivity.
Many users on Chinese social media – or at least the vocal ones – appear to support their government’s position, while many more have called on authorities to go a step further with a more wide-ranging boycott.
“We should ban all Japanese products,” read one top comment on Weibo. “The Japanese are irresponsible,” read another.
Japanese entities suffered a wave of harassment phone calls originating from China, prompting Japan’s vice foreign minister Masataka Okano to summon the Chinese ambassador over what he called an “extremely regrettable and worrisome” situation.