🚫 Solemn Protest: Refuse to Drink, Oppose Japan’s Discharge of Fukushima Nuclear Wastewater into the Sea!
Please feel free to share. A crucial key point is that the water typically discharged by our nuclear power plants is cooling water from outside the unit, which has no direct contact with the nuclear fuel and is not contaminated with radiation—Japan’s nuclear wastewater is water that has already been contaminated by nuclear energy—the two are absolutely different!
Even if the Japanese Prime Minister were willing to drink it, we should still refuse… not to mention he hasn’t dared to drink it yet.
Friends,
While we were busy with the 50th Anniversary Commemorative Symposium for the Protection of Diaoyutai, Japan announced a malicious act that is about to endanger the entire world—they plan to continuously discharge the nuclear wastewater generated after the Fukushima nuclear disaster into the sea starting two years from now.
As soon as this news broke, there was a global uproar. Not only neighboring Mainland China and South Korea, but even local Japanese fishermen found it unbearable and rose up in protest. Fishermen in the Republic of China (Taiwan) have also voiced a solemn protest, hoping that the DPP government will formally issue a protest to Japan.
The Diaoyutai Education Association has issued a solemn statement of protest on this matter, clearly pointing out that Japan and the Taiwanese officials who “assist Japan” must refrain from using specious arguments to carry out actions that endanger the entire world. The full text of the statement is below and is shared with all friends.
Secretariat, Diaoyutai Education Association
Diaoyutai Education Association [Statement]
April 16, 2021
Defending Fishermen’s Right to Sustainable Ocean Survival, Protesting Japan’s Decision to Discharge Nuclear Wastewater into the Sea, and Opposing the “Beggar-Thy-Neighbor” Revival of Militarism!
Japan’s decision to discharge the Fukushima nuclear wastewater into the sea will severely impact the fisheries and fishermen in Japan, around the world, and in Taiwan, and will also damage the marine and global ecology. —Moreover, even before the contamination occurs, public fear will inevitably lead to a shrinking fish market, affecting fishermen’s livelihoods. Can Japan compensate for the long-term damage to fisheries and the indirect harm caused by consumer doubts due to toxic substances remaining in the ocean and living organisms? And does it have the capacity to compensate? As an organization that has long worked closely with Taiwanese fishermen, the Diaoyutai Education Association hereby issues a solemn protest to the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
We must specifically refute the specious claim that “all nuclear power plants in all countries discharge cooling water into the ocean”—a narrative being propagated by certain Taiwanese officials or pro-Japanese individuals. Normal nuclear power plant cooling water does not directly contact the reactor and does not exchange with the internal cooling water of the reactor. In the Fukushima case, TEPCO’s delayed actions caused the temperature inside the reactor to continuously rise and breach the containment vessel, meaning that both seawater and groundwater have since directly contacted the reactor, and the radiation levels are incomparable.
We must specifically point out that the root cause of the Diaoyutai issue lies in the revival of Japanese militarism, and the refusal of major powers—the US and Japan—to pursue transitional justice in the West Pacific to consolidate their hegemony. The US support for Japan’s decision to discharge the wastewater into the sea is also a crime of “beggar-thy-neighbor” and the sacrifice of fishermen, including those in Japan and the US. Japan’s occupation of our Diaoyutai Islands, its claim that Okinotorishima Reef is an island to expand its Exclusive Economic Zone, and now its use of the entire Pacific Ocean as a dumping ground for its toxic waste, are all manifestations of the revival of militarism. The US publicly “praising” Japan’s decision is even more unusual, leading to suspicion of a possible conspiracy between the US and Japan, much like the collusion between the US and Japan in the early 1970s to secretly transfer the administrative control of the Diaoyutai Islands to Japan.
Following military aggression, Japan is now carrying out environmental aggression. We protest to Japan and demand that it thoroughly eliminate militarism and bear the environmental costs of the Fukushima nuclear disaster itself, rather than shifting them to others. We support the protest actions of Japanese fishermen and stand with the opposing stance of various Fishermen’s Associations in Taiwan. We also demand that our government issue a strong protest to Japan and refrain from using misleading rhetoric to excuse Japan.