Japan has told its citizens living in China to keep a low profile, including talking quietly in public, after Beijing blasted Tokyo for releasing treated radioactive water from a wrecked nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
I don’t understand why anyone who doesn’t absolutely need to be in China would go there - and I don’t consider a job requirement to be an absolute need. Yes, the country is beautiful, but the CCP is most definitely not, and they own you while you’re in their territory.
and I don’t consider a job requirement to be an absolute need
Well, I suppose people who don’t need to work for a living might struggle to understand the lives and motivations of other people, who, you know, have to take risks and make sacrifices in their lives.
Take it easy. I’m referring to consulate jobs, international business, and such. Usually, if you’re qualified for that, you have other options that don’t require moving to a police state.
Why would someone with a consulate job avoid China, of all places?
Employees of foreign governments, especially in embassies and related posts, have very specific rights under international law. They have a huge amount of leeway compared to tourists, who often can get more than nationals.
Honestly, China is Disneyland compared to a lot of the rest of the planet. I knew personnel who were stationed in the USSR and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, including one woman who got the crap beaten out of her for meeting with the Solidarity people in Poland despite having a diplomatic passport. I’ve also been to even more colorful places myself at the government’s request. International business is the same. Millions of people travel to China every year for business.
No one is going to mistake China for Norway, but it’s also hardly the DPRK. I’d even go to the DPRK just for the hell of it if I could.
I wouldn’t trust the CCP not to pull the same things that happened in Eastern Europe and the USSR, that’s all.
Morality is for those fortunate enough to have a choice
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Some cliff notes for those wondering what the fuss is about:
- In 2011, three nuclear reactors in Fukushima went into meltdown and released radioactive contamination into the environment, including oceanwater
- The facilities remain flooded with a volume of contaminated water that has been described as “500 Olympic-sized pools”
- As part of the ongoing effort to clean up Fukushima, Japan wants to eventually remove all of the remaining contaminated water
- Japan’s plan to do this involves reducing the radioactivity of the water using a filtration process known as ALPS while staging out water releases over a period of 30 years
- The main remaining contaminant in the water following ALPS filtration is expected to be Tritium, which samples show as existing within the threshold that is considered safe for human consumption.
- This plan was approved by the UN after determining that the radiological impact would be “negligible”
- China and South Korea both oppose the plan. Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the the Chinese Foreign Ministry was quoted calling the plan “extremely selfish and irresponsible” and stated that “The ocean is humanity’s common good, not Japan’s private sewer”
- Concerns over Tritium release have been criticized, as other active reactors in the region are known to release similar levels of the substance into the ocean (e.g.: those at the Yangjiang nuclear plant), though it is also worth noting that this criticism hinges upon the assumption that the ALPS filtration process will be as reliable as early results suggest. It requires trusting that Japan will be completely diligent in overseeing their filtration efforts so that radioactive Cesium is not released into oceanwater.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the the Chinese Foreign Ministry was quoted calling the plan “extremely selfish and irresponsible” and stated that “The ocean is humanity’s common good, not Japan’s private sewer”
That’s rich, coming from China.
Yeah they launched a bunch of rockets at the ocean not that long ago so they can’t like it that much.
Fuck the CCP
When has China dumped radioactive waste with high levels of Strontium-90 and Carbon-14 into the ocean?
Except the waste water doesn’t actually have high levels of either of those, as it’s been diluted well below the safe minimums before release
Theres no actual science to back up the fears about their handling of this - just your standard “nuclear = bad and scary”
Wait till you guys find out about bananas
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abc1507
Different tanks have different concentrations.
Just because the average is safe doesn’t mean each discharge is.
Have a non-pay walled article?
Because nothing in what I can read of that article discounts what I said.
Specifically a non-pay walled article that backs up your assertions that some discharges are above safe levels
Figures on the last page.
Yeah well without a non-pay walled source, I can’t verify that
500 Olympic-sized pools
Why do people use football fields and swimming pools as units of measurement.
How much is that in giraffes?
I can mentally picture an Olympic swimming pool, that’s why.
I need to get better at editing myself.
I assume it’s to help people visualize volume/distance/size/etc. If an article said “50,000 gallons”, it would be much more precise, but also harder to relate to. When an article says “500 Olympic-sized pools”, it’s significantly easier to picture in my mind.
It’s also worth remembering that this is a newspaper intended for the casual edification of the general public, not a scientific document.
Tritium is useful as fuck, but I’m guessing there’s no way to harvest that for use if it’s the only thing remaining after it goes through The Alps?
ALPS isn’t perfect and Tepco has a track record of cutting corners. I’m rather skeptical about Tepco’s ability to do this properly.
“Blasted”. Oh no what ever will grown adults do about someone on twitter “blasting” them.
It saddens me how much like idiocracy the world has become.
China likes Japanese culture too much to do anything significant about it.
