China’s General Administration of Customs announced it is lifting a multi-year ban on all Japanese seafood, allowing imports from certain prefectures.
China implemented a complete ban on all Japanese seafood in August 2023 in response to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) releasing treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The controversial water release came after a multi-year fight over TEPCO’s plans, which came as nearby foreign countries like China and South Korea were gradually removing restrictions on Japanese seafood implemented in the wake of the nuclear disaster in March 2011.
According to a release from the General Administration of Customs, China is planning to allow imports of aquatic products sourced from all but 10 prefectures: Fukushima, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama, Tokyo, and Chiba. The administration also reiterated that all imports will comply with relevant regulations, and aquatic companies that suspended imports must reapply for registration in China and can only carry out trade with the country following registration.
Japan Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Minister Shinjiro Koizumi welcomed the news and called it a “major turning point for Japan” in a press conference shortly after the announcement.
The move follows up on the country agreeing to lift restrictions in September 2024, though at the time it didn’t give any timeline on when that would occur. China Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Mao Ning said then that Beijing was still opposed to Japan’s release of wastewater but that an agreement between the two countries would ensure the country would fulfill its obligations under international law.
“China has urged Japan to seriously address concerns inside and outside Japan, to earnestly fulfill its obligations, to give full cooperation in the establishment of an independent and effective long-term international monitoring arrangement in which stakeholders can participate substantively, and to accept independent sampling and monitoring by China,” Ning said at the time.
China followed through with that monitoring, and in its latest release announcing it will resume imports, the country said the decision was made “on the premise that the long-term international monitoring of the discharge of nuclear contaminated water from Fukushima, Japan, and independent sampling monitoring by China have not been found to be abnormal” and that the Japanese government has assured the safety of any seafood imports.
Well prior to China’s ban, and even before the release of treated wastewater, TEPCO performed a number of studies that found radiation from Fukushima was no longer a danger to seafood eaters. However lingering fear of potential issues continued to cause harm to Japan’s seafood exports even in cases where restrictions were minimal.
China implemented its ban just days after the TEPCO release in 2023 – a move it made clear it was going to take in the years leading up to the decision. Prior to the ban, China – including Hong Kong – purchased 42 percent of Japan’s seafood exports, and Japanese seafood was a key import for Chinese seafood processors.
China’s ban ultimately did little to harm the Chinese industry, but the blowback was swift for Japanese seafood producers who saw one of their leading markets disappear overnight. Just weeks after the ban, Japanese seafood producers told SeafoodSource they were working to target other markets while continuing to emphasize that most prefectures were unaffected by any release water and that Japanese residents weren’t concerned.
“Most of the Japanese believe that the water is no problem, and we can consume and eat seafood as normal,” Japan Farmed Fish Export Association Ei Kiuchi told SeafoodSource in September 2023. “But of course, there are those who are worried, and I think some fishermen do not agree with the release because they are worried about the bad reputation.”
The impact of the Chinese ban shows in Japan’s overall food export values. In 2024, the country achieved a record food export value, exceeding JPY 1.5 trillion (USD 10 billion, EUR 8.8 billion) for the first time. Fisheries exports, meanwhile, dropped to JPY 360.9 billion (USD 2.5 billion, EUR 2.1 billion), down 7.5 percent from 2023.
The impacts forced the Japanese seafood industry to get creative to find markets for its products, and the Japan External Trade Organization undertook efforts to meet with distributors in places like Mexico and the U.S. to expand access to markets for major seafood products from Japan. High on that list of products were scallops from Hokkaido, and producers of the product told SeafoodSource the ban was having a real impact on their business.
Tsujino & Co. Manager Hiroki Komiyama told SeafoodSource his company traditionally exported 90 percent of its frozen whole-shell scallops to China for the purpose of reprocessing, and post-ban, he had to pivot to processors in Vietnam.
