Japan's ruling party asks for resumption of seafood, beef imports

Members of Japan's ruling coalition on a visit to China met with Chinese Communist Party officials to ask for the resumption of imports of Japanese seafood and beef.

Hiroshi Moriyama, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, asked the Communist Party of China on the 14th to resume imports of Japanese fisheries products, which were completely suspended in August 2023 due to the discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant (the Japanese government's name 'treated water'.

Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) reported that Hiroshi Moriyama, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, made the remarks at a meeting of the Sino-Japanese ruling party's exchange council with the Communist Party of China in Beijing.

However, China's official Xinhua News Agency did not mention Japan's demand for the resumption of seafood and beef imports in related reports.

China suspended imports of Japanese seafood in August 2023 after the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and banned imports of beef after a mad cow disease broke out in Japan in 2001.

The Chinese delegation also met with Wang Yi, the head of the Central Foreign Affairs Office of the Communist Party of China, and Wang Huning, the fourth-ranked president of the National People's Political Consultative Conference, to deliver Prime Minister Ishiba's personal letter.

The ruling party exchange council between the two countries was held for the first time in six years since October 2018.

On the Japanese side, Secretary-General Moriyama and Makoto Nishida of the ruling New Komeito Party attended, while on the Chinese side, Liu Jianchao (ministerial level) of the Chinese Communist Party's foreign liaison department, which is in charge of "party-to-party" diplomacy.