One year on, China’s ban on Japan’s seafood makes room for other countries

Japan's seafood industry continues to suffer one year after China suspended all aquatic product imports from its neighboring country over food safety concerns due to Tokyo's move to dump nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea, while seafood products from other countries have gained a significant share in the Chinese market, industry experts said on Sunday.

While Japan has been calling for the removal of the ban, Chinese officials and experts stressed that the move is to protect food safety, and they urged Tokyo to address serious concerns over its dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea. Industry experts said that Japan will continue to miss out on the continuously growing Chinese seafood market.

On August 24, 2023, China banned imports of all aquatic products from Japan after Japan, disregarding serious concerns from China and the broader international community, started dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea.

Following the move, Japan's seafood exports to China, one of the biggest importers of seafood, plunged, and the Japanese seafood industry suffered. While claiming that Japan's scallop industry has overcome the crisis triggered by the ban, the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, reported on Sunday that inventories of frozen scallops have piled up and warehousing costs have increased losses.

Overall, Japan's exports of aquatic products to China, including pearls and coral, plunged from 87.1 billion yen ($592 million) in 2022 to 61 billion yen in 2023 and 3.5 billion yen in the first half of 2024, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Fan Xubing, chairman of Seabridge Marketing, a China-based international company in the fishing sector, and also an aquatic industry insider and analyst, said that China's suspension of imports of Japanese aquatic products has inflicted major losses on the Japanese seafood industry.

"The restriction did not have a major impact on the Chinese market because China did not rely too much on Japanese imports," Fan told the Global Times on Sunday. "However, losing the Chinese market has had a major impact on relevant Japanese industries."

While Japan's seafood industry is suffering, seafood exports from other countries, including Russia, have grown significantly. For example, Russia's exports of seafood to China reached 1.29 million tons at the end of 2023, an all-time high, Russian news agency TASS reported on July 10.

Fan said that China's seafood market will continue to grow amid a consumption upgrade among Chinese consumers. "This created a huge opportunity for overseas seafood companies," he said, noting that Japan's seafood industry will continue to miss out.

Zhou Yongsheng, a deputy director of the Japanese Studies Center at the China Foreign Affairs University, said that Japan is responsible for the losses of relevant Japanese industries, as it has been ignoring serious concerns and has been dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea.

"Japan's aquatic industry will be able to find new markets such as the EU and the US to make up for some of the losses, but losing the Chinese market will be a huge loss for Japan's fishery industry," Zhou told the Global Times on Sunday.

Amid mounting losses, Japan has been calling for the removal of the ban. However, Chinese officials insisted that the move is to protect food safety and urged Tokyo to address serious concerns over its dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea.

"The precautionary measures taken by China and some other countries in response to Japan's move are aimed at protecting food safety and people's health. These measures are entirely legitimate, reasonable, and necessary," Mao Ning, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a regular press briefing on Friday, in response to Japan's call for lifting the ban.

Mao urged Japan to seriously respond to international and domestic concerns, fulfill its responsibilities and obligations, and offer full cooperation in setting up an independent international monitoring arrangement that remains effective in the long haul and has the substantive participation of Japan's neighboring countries and other stakeholders.