Photo/Illutration The government began releasing treated radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Aug. 24. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The Foreign Ministry issued a scathing critique of the Chinese government’s arguments protesting the release of treated radioactive water from a nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

The Sept. 1 statement said some of what was coming out of Beijing was not factual nor based on scientific evidence.

“Rather than unnecessarily heighten people’s concerns through transmissions not based on scientific evidence, we continue to ask that China transmit accurate information,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The statement was in response to one issued Aug. 28 on the Chinese Embassy’s website regarding the Fukushima water-discharge program that questioned the safety of the water and the reliability of the monitoring system.

Chinese Ambassador Wu Jianghao touched upon those points when he met with Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano the same day.

China claims the water being discharged is not safe because it contains about 60 radioactive nuclides and that many, including tritium, cannot be removed using current technology.

The Foreign Ministry statement pointed out that the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) used at the Fukushima plant “has been designed to remove 62 nuclides from the water.”

The statement went on to say, “The discharged water is not ‘polluted water’ as China claims, but is ‘ALPS processed water’ that has been sufficiently purified and then further diluted.”

The statement urged China to not use inappropriate expressions but abide by instructions from the International Atomic Energy Agency to clearly differentiate between terms used in order to avoid causing confusion among the general public.

China also claimed that the monitoring system at Fukushima lacked transparency and could not be described as international monitoring because specialists from other nations or international agencies were not on-site at Fukushima.

The Japanese response was that the comparative assessment being conducted by IAEA included participants from research institutions in the United States, France, Switzerland and South Korea.

The statement severely criticized China and said: “Denying the authority and jurisdiction of the IAEA is a denial of the safety standards established by China itself based on IAEA standards. This is an extremely irresponsible argument that interferes with the promotion of the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

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