It’s been just over three weeks since China increased checks on Japanese food imports over radiation concerns, but Kazuyuki Tanioka is already fearful for the future of his upscale Beijing sushi restaurant.
Like most restaurants in China, Tanioka’s eight-year-old Toya has struggled with years of COVID-19 restrictions, which only began to ease late last year.
Now it is facing a shortage of both customers and seafood ahead of Japan’s plans to empty into the sea treated radioactive water from its disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant.
“I’m very worried about whether we can continue,” said the 49-year-old chef-restaurateur from Kumamoto, southern Japan. “The inability to import food ingredients is truly a life or death situation for us.”
China is the biggest importer of Japanese seafood. Shortly after the 2011 tsunami and earthquake damaged the Fukushima plant, it banned the import of food and agricultural products from five Japanese prefectures.
China later widened its ban, which now covers 10 out of Japan’s total of 47.
The latest import restrictions were imposed this month after the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog approved Japan’s plans to discharge the treated water.
China has sharply criticised the move, which has also faced opposition at home, saying the discharge endangers marine life and human health.
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