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In retaliation for the release of treated wastewater from the shut down Fukushima nuclear power plant, Chinese customers are demanding a boycott of Japanese products, from high-end skincare creams to everyday household goods.
The action is shaping up to be the largest state-backed anti-Japanese nationalist outrage campaign in more than a decade, and comes at a time of growing divisions between China and US-allied countries in the region.
Customers began returning Japanese-made cosmetics and goods over the weekend after lists of boycotted products went viral online. Manufacturers were forced to declare products “radiation-free” after some buyers brought hand-held Geiger counters to test products for radioactivity. Stores have run out of table salt because some fear contaminated water will make it impossible to produce more sea salt.
Japan will release water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant starting August 24
The flare-up of anti-Japanese anger — and its careful handling of state media — fits Beijing’s longstanding effort to mobilize consumers and exploit its vast market to punish other countries for actions it displeases.
This approach was refined and reinforced under Xi Jinping, China’s leader, who used nationalist sentiments and fears of a dangerous world beyond China’s borders to justify his personal takeover of power.
For many decades, China’s leaders relied equally on economic performance and nationalism to legitimize Chinese Communist Party rule. But mounting economic headwinds in the country mean Xi must now rely more heavily on “xenophobic” nationalist rhetoric, said Suisheng Zhao, a researcher at the University of Denver.
Yasuhiro Matsuda, professor of international politics at the University of Tokyo, said China believes that making Japan a “scapegoat” is a useful distraction from its own problems, but if demonstrations escalate into violence, it “could seriously damage China’s image “.
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A ban on Japanese seafood on Friday was followed by a campaign of harassment calls to Japanese companies and government agencies. On the Chinese short video platforms Kuaishou and Douyin, dozens of users uploaded videos telling whoever answered the phone in Japan about the dangers of the water release.
Many said they were in retaliation for alleged Japanese calls to the Chinese embassy in Tokyo, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, reported.
Two video uploaders contacted by the Washington Post said they acted after seeing social media posts about the alleged health effects of the sewage release.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded last month after a two-year review that Japan’s plan meets international safety standards and would have “negligible” radiological impacts on humans and the environment.
But that ruling was largely rejected in China, where state media continued to stoke fear.
“I will never buy a Japanese product again in my life,” said one social media user who asked to remain anonymous. “Japan has to pay a price if it insists on doing its own thing.”
The last such large-scale expression of outrage came in 2012, when then-Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara wanted to nationalize the disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as Senkakus in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Officials then encouraged anti-Japanese sentiment and allowed crowds to protest outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing. It was only after Japanese were attacked in the streets and Honda and Nissan cars were destroyed that state media called for “rational” displays of patriotism.
The recent outbursts fit a two-decade pattern in which the Chinese Communist Party chooses moments to tap deep currents of anti-Japanese sentiment to bolster popular support.
“Whatever else is going on in Chinese politics, you can always play the Japan card, and that still applies,” said Richard McGregor, senior fellow on East Asia at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank.
The current round of state-sanctioned protests comes amid a deteriorating relationship between Tokyo and Beijing. China is firmly opposed to the type of defense and trade cooperation between the United States, South Korea and Japan demonstrated at the first summit of its kind at Camp David this month.
“In some ways, Fukushima is a sideshow to the larger geopolitical shifts that are taking place,” McGregor said.
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Not only China is questioning the decision to dump over 30,000 tons of treated nuclear waste water into the Pacific Ocean by March, in the first phase of a process expected to take more than 30 years. Environmental groups and residents in Japan and South Korea have protested what they say is an unnecessary risk.
But in any case, those concerns were contrasted with those who accepted the IAEA assessment, which ruled that the filtered and diluted effluent would have “negligible” radiological impacts on humans and the environment.
In a gesture of support for Japan, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his aides ate seafood for lunch Monday to show it was safe, the presidential office said.
But in China, publicly defending Japan — or even explaining the science behind the IAEA’s assessment — is a surefire way to be censored, or at least come under heavy attack from nationalists.
Liu Su, a technology blogger, was forced to apologize and delete an article defending the IAEA’s process after Shanghai authorities warned him about “inappropriate language”.
Chinese political experts often see these bouts of nationalist fervor both as a useful tool for the Communist Party to bolster its legitimacy and as a potential danger if outbursts of emotion get out of control.
Under Xi, who has been China’s leader since 2012, the same year the island dispute with Japan flared up, strident nationalism has come to the fore in public diplomacy and popular culture. Analysts dubbed this newly aggressive diplomacy “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy after a series of gory action blockbusters in which a former Chinese soldier defends compatriots from foreign threats.
According to a study published last year by the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a German think tank, Beijing has used these pressure tactics more frequently since 2018, even when the dispute is not about traditionally core issues such as sovereignty.
The controversy over Japan’s decision and potential genuine consumer concerns mean the backlash doesn’t quite fit the trend of economic coercion, but parts of Beijing’s response, like bans on fresh food, are similar and “strategic” because they’re on the world trading platform organization, said Aya Adachi, one of the report’s authors.
Yu reported from Hong Kong and Yang from Denmark.