Opinion | How concerns over Fukushima became an anti-China campaign
By Tom Fowdy
Since last week, Japan has commenced the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean. The move has drawn significant protests from China, as well as the South Korean public, who see the move as environmentally disastrous. Beijing, as well as the Hong Kong SAR, soon banned the import of Seafood from certain regions of Japan. Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media have not been sympathetic to China's concerns in the slightest, and have instead sought to push an official narrative that the dumping is scientifically proven to be safe, and of course that all criticism of the move is nothing more than a Chinese propaganda campaign to get back at Tokyo for siding with the United States.
The speed and coordination of the media narrative is unsurprising. First, one line of argument accuses China of hypocrisy, claiming that it dumps more nuclear waste than Japan. This of course is deliberate misinformation, as China has not experienced its own nuclear disaster whereby the water became actually contaminated, and moreover, it includes a deliberate omission of the various types of Isotopes involved. Secondly, the media are now pushing a convenient narrative that China is pursuing a campaign of harassment and intimidation of Japan, with scores of stories claiming Chinese people are calling Japanese numbers en-masse to air abuse.
Thirdly, anything Japan says with respect to the water is of course relayed without scrutiny in the Western mainstream media, especially the BBC. If Japanese scientists say it is safe, then it is safe. This style of biased reporting is similar to the Ukraine war, where anything Kiev does is passed off as fact. Of course, do you think if Chinese scientists say the water is contaminated and dangerous that it will be believed? Or given any kind of credibility? Of course, as we see from the start of the COVID pandemic, any narrative or claim from China is dismissed out of hand, irrespective of what the facts may be, the goal is to demonize Beijing as the aggressor and aggravator, no matter what.
In which case, if the Fukushima nuclear disaster was Chinese, and not Japanese, the narrative would be very different. Instead of whitewashing it as "safe", we'd be hearing scores of stories about how China's irresponsible government has in its lack of transparency unleashed a nuclear and environmental disaster across the world, which they should owe other countries compensation for. US congressmen would be lining up to propose sanctions, while the US State Department would be issuing regular condemnations and also line up multilateral statements to criticize China's actions. Objections and protests in other countries currently being ignored, would instead be given a worldwide platform.
In contrast to China, however, the Western attitude is that Tokyo can ultimately do no wrong. Japan has become the most critical strategic partner of the United States and the West at large in its campaign to contain Beijing. At the heart of Washington's strategy lies a goal to build Tokyo at the core of a myriad of new relationships all targeted at China. This includes its participation in the QUAD, which also involves Australia and India, as well as the G7 group, and of course, Biden's new effort to create a trilateral alliance with Yoon Seok-Yeol's pro-Japan South Korea. It is on that note that despite widespread outrage over Japanese dumping in Seoul, Yoon has been muted on any kind of official condemnation regarding it.
Despite this, the mainstream media opt to ignore South Korean objections anyway (or anyone else's for that matter) in the simplistic portrayal that the only "concerns" over such dumping constitute a Chinese state backed campaign. Of course, what the West fear about this, and hence why they are so painfully dismissive of it all, is that they fear China will succeed in turning other countries against Japan in a way that breaks unity with allies. Korea of course is one of those critical countries, which is why protests towards it are being ignored. All of this of course overlooks the fact that antipathy to Tokyo in China is deep-set and historical. China's list of grievances towards Japan from the occupation era remains long and unresolved, and also dismissed by the West.
Thus, what would be a legitimate and scientific debate over the environmental impact of nuclear-contaminated water dumping into the ocean has become a point-scoring exercise and propaganda war against China. It has to be understood that Western governments do not act in good faith and use their influence over the media to project large-scale misinformation to push their official narratives. In multiple instances, be it now or COVID, this has involved the distortion of science itself. In this case, it all comes down to one thing, Japan must be good, and China must be bad, at all costs.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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