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Tokyo (ANI): China is considering taking China to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over Beijing’s decision to ban imports of Japanese fishery products following the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Kyodo, a former senior UN official has said. Needed News reported.
Kyodo News is a non-profit cooperative news agency based in Minato, Tokyo.
Kiyotaka Akasaka, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, argued that Japan could file a complaint at the WTO as a “strategic move” to induce China to end punitive actions, which Tokyo Says it is not based on scientific basis.
The former UN official also suggested that Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and new Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa should address the safety of water discharges from the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeastern Japan during a series of UN General Assembly meetings in New York this week. Should be debated about. Expand international understanding.
“Even after filing a formal complaint with the Geneva-based UN trade watchdog, Tokyo can still negotiate with Beijing as bilateral negotiations are the basis of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism,” he said in a recent interview, according to Kyodo News. “
Akasaka handled issues related to the WTO’s predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, including a stint at the then-GATT Secretariat in Geneva when he served in the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
He said, “Some people say that bringing the matter to WTO may provoke Beijing and complicate the matter. But I believe that Japan can do this as a strategic move to put pressure on China. “I don’t think China wants to dispute this issue with Japan in the WTO.”
“Japan should continue to negotiate with China bilaterally and use multilateral platforms such as the WTO so that Beijing can better understand how isolated the country is on this issue, which we highlighted at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Jakarta. “Saw during the Summit and the 20th Summit in New Delhi earlier this month,” Akasaka said.
Japan-China bilateral relations sharply soured after China imposed sanctions on Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc., the operator of the Fukushima plant, following its first release into the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 24, according to Kyodo News.
China took the step even after the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded in July a two-year safety review found that treated water discharge would have “negligible radiological effects on people and the environment.”
According to the Japanese government, the amount of the radioactive substance tritium present in treated water released annually from the Fukushima plant is about one-tenth the amount of tritium released from the Qianshan Nuclear Power Plant in China. (ANI)