Japan says China will resume Japanese seafood imports it halted over Fukushima water discharge
Japan said Friday that China will resume imports of Japanese seafood that it banned in 2023 over the discharge of wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea.
Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said the two sides reached an agreement after Japanese and Chinese officials met in Beijing and the imports will resume once the necessary paperwork is done.
China did not immediately comment.
The step is based on an agreement between the two nations that Beijing was to take steps toward ending the ban by joining water sampling missions as part of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant was damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, triggering meltdowns in its three reactors and causing large amounts of radioactive water to accumulate.
The wastewater was treated and heavily diluted to reduce the radioactivity as much as possible before Japan began discharging the wastewater in August 2023. Japan says the discharge has met international safety standards and data from the IAEA monitoring are publicly available.
China blocked imports of Japanese seafood because it said the release would endanger the fishing industry and coastal communities in eastern China.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
In Australia's post-US future, we must find our own way with China
Thanks to US regional strategic primacy, Australia has been virtually immune from the threat of direct military attack since the defeat of Japan in 1945. Now that is changing. In future it will no longer be militarily impossible for China to attack Australia directly. And not just China: other major regional powers, especially India and eventually perhaps Indonesia, will have the potential to launch significant attacks on Australia. That does not mean we now face a serious threat of Chinese military attack. Today the only circumstance in which Australia could credibly find itself under attack from China would be if Australia joined the US in a war with China over Taiwan. Reports that Australia is a target of Chinese cyber and intelligence operations do not show that Beijing poses a military threat to us, any more than our cyber and intelligence operations targeting China provide evidence that we pose a military threat to them. It is harder to say whether China might become militarily aggressive towards us in future. We cannot assume that it will from its military buildup alone, because countries often expand their armed forces to defend themselves rather than to attack others. But, equally, we cannot rule out the possibility that China might decide to use armed force against Australia in decades to come. Some aspects of China's naval buildup, especially its sustained investment in aircraft carriers, which would have no useful role in a US-China war over Taiwan, suggest that it wants to be able to conduct long-range power-projection operations, which could encompass Australia. Nonetheless, it does seem unlikely. For one thing, it is a little hard to imagine what China's purpose might be in attacking Australia, given that we are not an easy country to invade. And if we get our defence policy right it should be possible for us to raise the cost to the point that it is not worth China's while. This all means that, while we should not ignore it, we should not allow the distant possibility of a Chinese military threat to dominate our thinking about China. There are many other dimensions to what is a very important, complex and ultimately inescapable relationship. It is also a relationship of a completely unfamiliar kind. Other than our two great allies, Australia has never before encountered a country as large, as powerful, as influential in our region, as important to us economically, and with close heritage connections with such a large proportion of our population, as China. Once we abandon the illusion that the US is going to manage China for us, we will realise that we have no choice but to find our own way. This will not be comfortable or easy. China is ruthless, demanding and completely transactional – though no more than other great powers. Over the past decade, in Canberra and around the country, exaggerated fears and a desire to stay in step with Washington have crowded out serious thinking about China itself and how the complex range of interests we have in our relationship with it can best be balanced. We have less deep expertise on China now than we had 30 years ago. That has to change. Our second big task is to rethink our relationship with the US. In the decades before the mid-1990s, there was an assumption that – in a Whig-view-of-history way – Australia was gradually but ineluctably emerging from dependence to independence as we left our colonial and imperial past behind and embraced our Asian future. That died away around the time John Howard became prime minister in 1996, when it seemed to many people that the future was America's, and that Australia's future was to become ever more tightly entwined with it, strategically, economically and culturally. This was the time when a US-Australia free trade agreement seemed both essential and sufficient to guarantee Australia's economic future, and when America's place as the world's dominant military power seemed unchallengeable. The economic illusions of that era were soon overtaken by the hard realities of China's rise but the strategic illusions have survived. Indeed, they were strengthened by the 'war on terror' and have been intensified again by the rising fear of China. So we clung on and stopped imagining we could do anything else. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion It is often said, for example, that the intelligence relationship is so close and so important to both sides as to be indissoluble. Don't bet on that. US access to Pine Gap as a location for its satellite ground station is valuable but far from essential. Our access to US intelligence under the Five Eyes arrangements is very beneficial and, in some ways, irreplaceable, in that it provides intelligence we could not get in other ways. But that does not mean we could not get by without it. We certainly could. As things get tough with Washington over the months and years ahead, there will be a temptation to try to placate Donald Trump and earn his favour by meeting his demands for increased defence spending, or by siding with the US in its economic war by cutting links with China. There may be good reasons to increase defence spending but trying to buy Trump's favour is not one of them. Likewise, that futile goal would in no way offset the many powerful arguments against joining a US-led anti-China economic coalition. There are no favours we can do Trump which will keep the US strategically engaged in Asia and committed to Australia's defence. We need to bear these cold realities clearly in mind as we think about our future relations with Washington. The first step is to recognise that the end of the alliance as we have known it for so long does not mean the end of the relationship. We have been close allies for so long that it is hard to imagine what other form our relationship might take. But with careful management, a new, beneficial post-alliance relationship can evolve, just as our relations with Britain evolved after it withdrew from Asia in the late 1960s. We continued to have close and productive defence and security links, drawing some strength from our shared history together. Singapore offers another instructive model. It is not a US ally but it has an excellent relationship with Washington, including deep defence links. We should aim for a post-alliance relationship like that with the US in the years ahead – and we should be building it now. That does not mean severing ties with Washington but it does mean changing the relationship fundamentally. Above all, it means acknowledging that the security undertakings in Anzus can no longer be the foundation of our strategic policy, or of our relationship with the US. The Canberra establishment is shocked by any suggestion that we should walk away from the Anzus commitments. They think we can and must depend on the US more than ever in today's hard new world. But that misses the vital point. It is not Australia but the US that is walking away from the commitments it made in the Anzus treaty in very different circumstances 75 years ago. That was plain enough under Joe Biden. It is crystal clear today under Trump. This is the lesson we must draw from Washington's failure to defend Ukraine, from its crumbling position in Asia and from US voters' decisive rejection of the old idea of US global leadership to which we still cling. Our best path now is to recognise this and start acting accordingly. Hugh White is emeritus professor of strategic studies at ANU. This is an edited extract of Hard New World: Our Post-American Future, published today in Quarterly Essay
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
The ancient Chinese text of the Zhuangzi teaches us to reject entrenched values – and treasure the diversity of humanity
The Zhuangzi, an ancient Chinese Daoist text written by the philosopher known by the same name, has a lot to say about people who are considered 'disabled'. This is interesting in itself, as parts of it were written around the 4th century BCE, when only the privileged could read and write. Why would the authors of this text, men of privilege, be interested in people who were considered at the time to be 'less than normal'? The answer relates, at least in part, to the fact that the text was critical of how its society promoted and prioritised the 'valuable' or 'useful', and what was regarded as important to humanity. Within such a society, whatever – or whoever – falls short of the accepted standards is seen in demeaning ways. But the Zhuangzi rejects this way of thinking. So how might we put some of these ideas into practice today? The Zhuangzi tells the story of a wondrous tree, so large that its canopy provided shade for thousands of oxen. The tree only became this large because its wood was deemed to be 'useless' for any human project. Therefore, it was left alone and allowed to grow into its magnificent size. This story shows how easy it is for us to adopt entrenched values. Are we guided too much by what society tells us is 'useless'? It allows us to turn the tables on our own assumptions and challenge our thinking of what 'normal' and 'useful' means. This is reflective of Daoism more broadly, which advocates for diversity in how we think about humanity and human achievements. Daoism resists what would today be considered an ableist approach to life. It teaches us that looking at life through an ableist lens only leads to negativity about those who are deemed 'not good enough'. Such an approach looks for how people are deficient, rather than how they are capable. The Zhuangzi's point is not that we cannot celebrate excellence. Rather, it champions the richness of life by showing that people can be excellent in many different ways. Instead of telling us how to fix people's medical and physiological conditions, it prompts us to reflect on the shallow attitudes of those who see others as 'disabled', who want to draw attention to what some people lack, rather than what they might have. There isn't a word in the Zhuangzi that means 'disability'. Rather, the ancient text uses storytelling and exaggerated language to try to show how society sees some people in derogatory ways. Stories about 'sad horsehead humpback' or 'hunchback limpleg' show that these are not labels that the men were born with; they were given to them by a society that wrongly prides itself on 'normalising' able-bodied people. Through these stories, we learn that sometimes the word 'disability' is used unfairly to define people, so that our interactions with them are determined by the label. As the Zhuangzhi shows, life is too important for us to take a one-size-fits-all approach to it. The philosophy encourages us to embrace the richness of life by appreciating its diversity. Karyn Lai is a professor of philosophy in the faculty of arts, design and architecture, University of New South Wales
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Don't exploit damning nuclear report, Iran warns Europe
Iran has warned the UK and other European powers it would retaliate if they 'exploit' a UN report alleging that Tehran has failed to declare important details about its nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had omitted details about nuclear material and nuclear-related activities across three locations in the country. The nuclear watchdog added that Iran had increased production of highly enriched uranium to up to 60 per cent – uranium needs to be enriched to 90 per cent for atomic weapons. In December, the UK, France, Germany and the US reportedly planned on submitting a draft resolution to the 35 members of the IAEA's board at its meeting on June 9. The three European powers threatened to reimpose sanctions on Iran if the country did not 'de-escalate its nuclear programme to create the political environment conducive to meaningful progress and a negotiated solution'. Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said he had told Rafael Grossi, the IAEA chief, that Tehran would 'respond to any inappropriate action by the European parties' in light of the report, and warned them not to 'exploit' it to 'advance their political objectives'. According to the report, Iran's total amount of enriched uranium now exceeds 45 times the limit authorised by a landmark agreement between world powers in 2015. While Iran is only allowed to produce up to 300 kilograms (661.4lbs) of enriched uranium, they are estimated to have 9,247.6kg (20,387.5lbs). It added that Iran did not 'declare nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three undeclared locations in Iran, specifically, Lavizan-Shian, Varamin and Turquzabad'. It said: 'These three locations, and other possible related locations, were part of an undeclared structured nuclear program carried out by Iran until the early 2000s ... some activities used undeclared nuclear material.' The report said that Iran now possesses 408.6 kg (900.8lbs) enriched uranium up to 60 per cent purity and that Tehran has 'repeatedly either not answered or not provided technically credible answers to the agency's questions, and has sanitised locations as listed in this report, which has impeded agency verification activities'. Iran is now 'the only non-nuclear-weapon state to produce such material', which was a cause of 'serious concern' , the report said. According to IAEA, if Iran were to further enrich the uranium it currently has to 90 per cent purity, they would have enough to produce 10 nuclear bombs. Donald Trump, the US president, has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to resolve a decades-long dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Washington had sent a 'detailed and acceptable proposal' to Iran and it was in 'their best interest to accept it'.
