On the eve of Hong Kong enacting a ban on seafood (and sea salt and seaweed) from 10 Japanese prefectures

  

Akami (red tuna meat) from Nagasaki served with tororo 

(grated mountain yam), negi (Japanese leek) and wasabi

(Japanese horseradish) at the Sheung Wan branch of Sushi Masa 

 

It's official: The Hong Kong government is imposing "an indefinite ban on seafood imports from 10 Japanese prefectures starting on Thursday as the Fukushima power plant discharges treated waste water into the sea."  More specifically, the prohibition will cover " all live, chilled, frozen and dried sea products, sea salt and seaweed" from the prefectures of Fukushima, Tokyo, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama.

 

"Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wan [also] said on Tuesday, adding that the government will monitor radiation levels to determinate how long the ban will last".  What's left unsaid though is how the four landlocked prefectures of Tochigi, Gunma, Nagano and Saitama would have those kinds of products -- and also why Niigata's seafood products are considered unsafe despite it being on the Sea of Japan side of Honshu Island: that is, the opposite side from where Fukushima is!

 

Of course, it's easy enough to accuse the Hong Kong government's decision to ban seafood imports from these 10 Japanese prefectures as being political rather than truly scientific.  But here's offering up some suggestions as to how they've come to target these particular prefectures (rather than others of Japan's 47 prefectures).

 

Firstly, as I previously noted, the 10 affected Japanese prefectures are the same ones that the (Mainland) Chinese government has also targeted.  But, as Environment minister Tse Chin-wan was quoted in a RTHK article as saying, Hong Kong "is taking a relatively conservative approach with the imports ban".  

On one level, I applaud this "conservative" approach -- in that I wouldn't like Hong Kong to be like Mainland China in banning all food products from the Fukushima, Tokyo, Chiba, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano and Saitama.  And his especially if they also are banning drinks too as there are a number of really good sake breweries located in those prefectures!

However, after deciding to deviate from China in being more "conservative" and just specifying that they would be banning seafood products, the Hong Kong government should have more carefully looked at the list of prefectures affected rather than just follow China's lead in terms of which prefectures to ban products from!  This way, it wouldn't end up having egg on its face as a result of banning seafood products from landlocked prefectures and from Niigata too!

 

In addition, I have a feeling that the Chinese government first came up with this list of 10 prefectures in March 2011, when there were fears that radioactive waste from Fukushima was airborne as well as flowing into the ocean.  For if this were so, having Niigata and Nagano on the list makes more sense.

 

In any case, even though the ban is due to take effect tomorrow, it apparently remains unclear still to such as Martin Chan – a member of the board of directors of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants & Related Trades -- whether seafood coming from other Japanese regions – via Tokyo (one of the prefectures on the ban list) – are exempt from the prohibition.  For as Chan's pointed out, " 80 to 90 per cent of all exports from Japan to the world transit via Tokyo".  And as it so happens, Japan's (and the world's) largest seafood market, Toyosu, is located in Tokyo prefecture!

If seafood coming from other Japanese regions (even if they transit through Tokyo) is allowed to come into Hong Kong, then I think many restauranteurs and food purveyors here will thank goodness for small mercies.  At the same time though, I think many -- if not all -- of them would, given the choice, continue importing seafood, sea salt and seaweed from whichever part of Japan they've thus far been doing; with few, if any of them, seriously worrying about the impact of Fukushima wastewater on those items.

 

As has been reported (including in a recent piece in The Guardian), "the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), approved the discharge, saying that the radiological impact on people and the environment would be “negligible”.  [And s]ome experts point out that nuclear plants around the world use a similar process to dispose of wastewater containing low-level concentrations of tritium and other radionuclides."  As an example: "“Tritium has been released [by nuclear power plants] for decades with no evidential detrimental environmental or health effects,” said Tony Hooker, a nuclear expert from the University of Adelaide."

 

And for the record: "Tepco’s advanced liquid processing system removes most radioactive elements except for tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that is difficult to separate from water.  The water will be diluted to one 40th of the concentration permitted under Japanese safety standards before being pumped into the ocean over the next 30 to 40 years via an underwater tunnel 1km from the coast."      

 

On a personal note: as it so happens, I'm due to have an omakase meal this Friday at a high end sushi-ya here in Hong Kong.  It will be interesting to see how different it is from previous ones I've had at the same establishment: in terms of what is served (this not least because I'd been served tuna from Shiogama and Miyagi oysters there previously); and, also, if there will be more, fewer or the same number of diners there.