Since Thursday, the start of the operation to discharge wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean, Japanese companies and their employees have seen a wave of telephone harassment coming from China. Faced with this, Tokyo therefore asked Beijing to “guarantee the safety of Japanese residents in China”, the latter being very unfavorable to the water discharge operation.
Hiroyuki Namazu, senior Japanese diplomat in charge of Asian and Oceanian Affairs, thus asked the diplomats of the Beijing embassy in Tokyo to call for calm, according to a press release from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the end of the day on Saturday. Similar incidents have also occurred in China targeting Japanese establishments, Hiroyuki Namazu told Chinese diplomats according to the statement.
Japanese in China told to keep a low profile
“We urge the Chinese government to take appropriate measures, including calling on its citizens to act calmly, and to take all possible measures to ensure the safety of Japanese residents in China and Japanese diplomatic missions in China.” The Tokyo Embassy in Beijing has also asked its nationals to refrain from speaking loudly in Japanese.
A Fukushima businessman, quoted by the Kyodo news agency, said his four restaurants and pastry shops received a total of around 1,000 calls on Friday, most from China, prompting his businesses to disconnect their lines .
Fukushima City Mayor Hiroshi Kohata said in a Facebook social media post on Saturday that the city hall had received around 200 similar calls in two days, and local schools, restaurants and hotels had also been hit.