[I didn’t plan for this at all—it literally just worked out this way. Weibo’s all about the nuclear waste water release at Fukushima this last couple of days, and today, the first two posts I came upon happened to be about the event. One is by an official news source, backed by government media, where the comment section is tightly-policed, and you can see the usual propaganda and how they’re spinning the story. The other is a private influencer account talking about the event, whose comment section isn’t watched nearly as closely and isn’t as filled with bots (I think?), and you can see more of what people actually think, I think. I find it interesting, because this is actually a very common phenomena on the Chinese internet, that since the comment sections of official news media is so heavily patrolled, people gather under the nearest influencer post to talk about what they think instead.]
A video explaining the Japanese nuclear waste water release, that’s not just trending, but pinned at the top of weibo for now. The content is, “As soon as Japan has initiated its nuclear waste water release plan, it has drawn criticism from the entire international community. But even with so much protest, Japan is still unmoved. Who is white-washing Japan’s deeds and backing them up? After analysing big data behind social media platforms, we’ve found over 5000 posts about how it’s harmless to release nuclear waste water into the ocean.
After organising them by type of reasoning involved, we found that the most frequently used argument is, “Everyone country releases nuclear waste water. Japan isn’t even releasing the most amount of it.” This reasoning mixes up the normal coolant water used in nuclear plants, and the contaminated waste water that’s come in contact with the reactor core in Fukushima, and categorises them as the same thing. Surely, the water you’ve made hard-boiled eggs in is not remotely the same as egg drop soup?
The nuclear waste water in Fukushima contains over 60 types of radioactive elements. Some of them are known carcinogens, some can destroy human DNA. People are worried about getting X-rays at the hospital. This is the kind of stuff that can turn you into a mutant! The memes trending lately are making a good point. [Shows meme images of monsters from Godzilla movies predicting it’s what seafood will look like in the future.]
Based on investigation by international environmental organisations, the nuclear waste water processing equipment at Fukushima cannot do anything about some of the most dangerous of these elements, such as Carbon-14. This is why TEPCO has entirely avoided talking about these elements, only admitting that Carbon-14 is in the waste water after processing in 2020. And currently, Japan is only testing the radioactive elements in the waste water in very small samples. They have no tested every container. We have no idea how bad the real situation is. And as for what damage these radioactive elements can cause once released, it’s hard to say since there is no precedent.
This is why the nuclear waste water from Fukushima is nothing at all similar to normal coolant water at nuclear power plants. So where did this argument that confuses them for the same thing even come from?
Based on our statistics, this argument first peaked on the 23rd of March, 2023, and has been trending ever since. But if you click on the peak, you’ll see a very familiar name. It’s not a Japanese media company at all, but Voice of America’s Chinese social media account. They first included this argument on their report of the release plans.
[There’s a screenshot of the original Voice of America news report here, which reads, “Fukushima Nuclear Plant’s plans to release treated radioactive waste water has drawn sustained and fierce protest from China, but Japan explains that the amount of Tritium in the waste water that is going to be released is far lower than what the Chinese Taishan nuclear plant releases. Fukushima plans to get their operation ready in the spring, in cooperation with international nuclear organisations to ensure safety. They have successfully created fish farms to prove the safety of the water after treatment.]
And this report was quickly retweeted by dozens of accounts on overseas social media platforms. It quickly became the most commonly quoted post under this topic, and eventually received over 2 million views. But that wasn’t where the spread of this argument stopped. After closer investigation, we found a diagram of supposed, “Yearly Tritium Release by Nations around the World” frequently appearing under posts about this topic, written in at least Chinese, Japanese, and English. There is even an account spamming this picture nonstop on Quora, like a bot.
It wasn’t just the original picture that got popular, but at least 6 different versions of diagrams based off of it, which even appeared on Japanese news reports. But why do these people focus so much on Tritium in their propaganda efforts? I had to ask a friend of mine who works in nuclear safety about this, and found that there’s an even deeper trap hidden here.
It turns out, there are a few points of similarity between normal coolant water and Japanese nuclear waste water, and Tritium is one of those similarities. This is why every nuclear power plant around the world is releasing Tritium. That’s how they were able to put together a diagram of country by amount of tritium released. However, nuclear power plants around the world are only releasing water with tritium levels far below that of the WHO’s standards for drinking water. Japan can’t actually make a big deal out of it. Most importantly, tritium only accounts for a very small amount of damage caused by nuclear waste water.
Tritium has a half-life of only 12.3 years. But carbon-14, which we mentioned before, has a half-life of over 5000 years. And carbon-14 can be much more concentrated in ocean life, up to 50 times more concentrated than Tritium. So the nuclear waste water Japan is pumping into the oceans is far more dangerous to people than merely its tritium levels can indicate.
With so many dangerous radioactive elements, and so many unknown risks, why does Japan keep focusing on and expanding the problem with tritium, even though it’s not that dangerous? It’s very hard not to doubt the ulterior motives behind the spread of this diagram to direct focus away from the actual problem.
So where did this image come from? After collecting various versions of this image, we discovered that they all have the same watermark, indicating they were created by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Based on what we were able to track, it in fact first appeared in METI’s report about draft for the waste water release plans. And METI also announced a budget of 30 billion Japanese yen to deal with “rumours” about the effects of releasing nuclear waste water into the ocean. They even held public bidding for “promotional campaigns”. You can find on their official website, that many Japanese media groups have taken on projects to promote the safety of releasing nuclear waste water.
And yet, all the budgets of these campaigns added together does not reach 30 billion yen. So did some of these funds go to other, invisible partners? We cannot know for sure. But at least it’s easy to see, that aside from Japanese media, American media and various bot-like accounts are also proactively white-washing Japan.
What’s the concept of 30 billion yen? Based on the METI report published in February of 2020 on the proposals for dealing with nuclear waste water, this “promotional budget” is enough to pay for releasing the waste water as steam instead.
This method involves diluting the water water, then turning it into steam, and releasing it into the atmosphere. It can avoid directly contaminating the oceans, and will impact their neighbouring countries less. When faced against criticism around the world about their waste water release plans, the day before the scheduled release, Japan approved another 70 billion yen “PR budget”. That is twice the budget for the steam release method, and 20 times the budget for the ocean release method.
They chose the cheapest possible solution for dealing with their nuclear waste water, and then spent several times that amount of money on dealing with the PR backlash that resulted. And the plan they came up with is dragging other countries down and muddying the waters, continually promoting bad science. Just who is guilty about what they’re doing?”
Under this post is a poll, asking people what they think about TEPCO admitting to over 60% of their stored nuclear waste water having higher than safe levels of radioactivity.
The options on the poll are:
“I strongly condemn TEPCO and their behaviour and want them to deal with the situation ASAP.” — 72.9K
“This is a failure of the Japanese government and TEPCO. They need to take responsibility.” — 47.4K
“I want China to take action to protect the environment and human health.” — 45.8K
“Relevant authorities need to monitor the situation and apply sanctions.” —46.7K
Comments say, “Using the same amount of money to turn it all into steam is a waste of money, effort, and time. If they spend it on buying dogs to PR for them, everyone can make money, and the dogs they’ve bought can be used again in the future. Which option seems more cost effective now?”
“Whenever finance or law bloggers start trying to educate you about nuclear safety, you should remember that even if pigs start wearing glasses, they still can’t say anything meaningful. [Doge]”
“This platform is the biggest nest of Japanese spies.”
“The best way to whitewash this whole thing—if it’s so safe, why don’t Japanese people just drink it all?”
Below this is another tiktok video, posted by a Chinese man travelling in Japan. He found a restaurant in Shinjuku with a sign out front, which read, “To all Chinese customers—all of the ingredients in our restaurant comes from Fukushima.” He called the police, who arrived and persuaded the restaurant owner to change his sign. They told the Chinese man, “We can help communicate your concern for you, but we can’t guarantee whether or not he’ll listen.” An old Japanese man who was watching this happen told him, “If you feel discriminated against, you can sue them in court. I’m a lawyer, and I can help you out.”
Comments say, “Wow, everyone can express their opinion within the bounds of the law, and won’t get censored just because it’s against community guidelines. This is how the world is supposed to look.”
“Holy shit, you can actually call the cops over this?? And they’ll actually come???”
“My cousin works in Japan, and last time I chatted with her, I asked if Japanese people are worried about this at all, and she was like, nah, people just eat whatever. Some people will read the packaging, but most Japanese people don’t care at all. This sign is written specifically for “Chinese customers”, and that does seem pretty targeted. Like, I don’t think it’s appropriate either, and I’m not a special snowflake or anything. Most people can’t separate themselves from their in-group.”
“What happens if you call the police about discrimination in China? Like when teachers tell you, “Why aren’t you doing better than a girl?” Or when the train stewardess comes over to tell parents with kids that they need to stay quiet? Or when cars have stickers that read, “Female driver, keep your distance”?”
"I think one thing behind this Chinese anger over the Fukushima wastewater is a very deep resentment over the (correct) perception in China that Japan is a country that will basically get away with anything because of its geopolitical closeness to the US"
This sort of post is a gem, the stuff you can't find anywhere else.