Chinese embassy in Egypt slams Japan for diverting risks of nuclear pollution to whole world

The Chinese embassy in Egypt on Wednesday strongly criticized Japan's decision to discharge nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean, characterizing it as a selfish and irresponsible action that has sparked global concerns.

The Chinese side expressed its "firm opposition and strong condemnation" of the Japanese wrongdoing, Li Zhimin, spokesman for the Chinese embassy, told reporters at a press conference, which coincided with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi's visit to the Egyptian capital.

"If Japan respects science, why is it facing strong questioning from the international community and widespread outrage over its discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean? Why doses Japan only obtain the overt support from a small number of countries for its discharge decision? In fact, those countries orally supporting Japan are the ones with the sharpest declines of Japanese seafood imports. It's an extremely irresponsible misconduct of the Japanese government to forcibly discharge the Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean, in disregard of strong opposition from the international community, and diverting the risks of nuclear pollution to the whole world," Li said.

In light of the Japanese foreign minister's visit and his solicitation of Egypt's support on this issue, Li conveyed confidence in Egypt's commitment to justice and impartiality in international affairs, believing that Egypt will make independent judgments based on the merits of the matter itself.

Japan started dumping nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on August 24.