Japan can't dump waste in its neighbors' yards
0 
 |
|
[By Liu Rui/Global Times] |
Japan's handling of its nuclear crisis and its dumping of massive amounts of radiation-contaminated water into the ocean have become an international concern.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei dealt with this last Friday in a proper and measured way, showing China's concern over the incident and letting Japan know that China is paying close attention to the current situation. He implied that if China faced problems as a result of the incident, it would take further action.
Hong also emphasized that Japan should handle matters in accordance with international law and take effective measures to protect the marine environment, which, if polluted, could damage other countries, including China.
Hong also asked Japan to tell China the related information in a timely, comprehensive and accurate fashion, which suggested that China is unsatisfied with Japan's lack of prior notification.
Although Japan's nuclear leakage incident has not yet influenced China's environment, a slew of actions taken by Chinese government have shown that China kept highly alerted and precautious of the current situation.
The Japanese government has admitted that the situation at the stricken Fukushima plant is still precarious. Japan explained that its dumping of less concentrated radiation-contaminated water into the ocean was a necessary step to spare room for storing more concentrated radiation-contaminated water.
This might be reasonable for Japan. But this action didn't only damage itself but also brought detrimental effects to other Pacific countries and regions. Japan's lack of prior notification or discussion with other countries was an inexplicable failure of its duties as a neighbor.
