Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin. Photo: VCG

Japan should uphold a scientific attitude, face up to opposition from the international community and correct its irresponsible decision to dump radioactive water into the ocean, instead of confusing the public with pseudoscience, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday.

Japan's claim that China and South Korea have lower standards for the treatment of wastewater from nuclear power plants than Japan is complete pseudoscience, said spokesperson Wang Wenbin at a press conference.

Wang said that there is a core difference between normal sewage from nuclear power plants such as in China and South Korea and Fukushima nuclear wastewater.

"The discharge of sewage from a normal operating nuclear power plant complies with internationally accepted standards, whereas the Fukushima nuclear water contains a large amount of radionuclide used to cool off the nuclear reactor after the Fukushima accident, which will have a huge impact on the global marine environment," said Wang.

Wang noted that apart from releasing wastewater into the ocean, there are four other possible methods for disposing of the wastewater, including underground burial and steam and hydrogen release. However, Japan chose to dump the water into the ocean to minimize its own economic costs and put the global environment in danger.

The unilateral decision made by Japan without discussion with the international community is extremely selfish, and transferring the responsibility to all of mankind is extremely irresponsible, said Wang.

Wang slammed Japan's claim, which said that criticism from South Korea and China over the issue was "nonsense," and questioned whether Japan's radioactive water could meet international discharge standards.

"I will put huge a question mark on the approach taken to treating radioactive water adopted by Japan," said Wang.

Global Times