On November 7, 2025, Japan said seafood exports to China had resumed for the first time since Beijing imposed a ban in August 2023 over the discharge of treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The first shipment was 6 metric tons of scallops harvested in Hokkaido and sent to China on Wednesday, a concrete step that shows the diplomatic thaw is now moving into trade.
The resumption matters because China was Japan's biggest overseas market for seafood before the ban. Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said the development was positive and urged Beijing to keep re-registering pending applications from Japanese exporters. The loss of access hit Japan's seafood sector hard, especially producers of scallops and sea cucumbers, and the restart offers at least some relief to an industry that had spent more than two years under pressure.
The ban followed global arguments over the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was badly damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Japan has said the water release is safe after treatment and dilution, and the International Atomic Energy Agency later said the discharges meet international safety standards. Even so, the issue became a major political and reputational problem at home and with neighbors such as China and South Korea.
Beijing did not lift all restrictions. China still bans seafood from Fukushima and nine nearby prefectures, a limit that was imposed immediately after the plant's meltdowns. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China would keep managing Japanese seafood imports strictly under laws and regulations to protect food safety, and that restrictions would be restored if risks were detected. China also said it would continue international and independent sampling and monitoring.
The return of a first shipment suggests a gradual opening, not a full normalization. The evidence packet says Beijing announced in June that it would ease the ban and prepare for imports after repeated negotiations between the two sides. That makes the Hokkaido scallops more than a one-off commercial transaction: they are the first visible test of whether the reopened route can function reliably under continued inspection and political caution.
Japan is still pressing for more. Kihara said Tokyo will continue to urge Beijing to lift the remaining seafood bans and also to resume imports of Japanese beef. The AP report shows a trade dispute that began as an environmental and safety argument now moving into a managed, partial reopening, with both governments trying to balance consumer confidence, political pressure and the economic stakes for exporters.
For exporters, the reopening is only a first checkpoint. The AP report makes clear that the broader dispute over Fukushima still matters, both because public confidence in food safety remains politically sensitive and because the remaining prefectural bans limit what can move across the border. Japan's industry is likely to treat the Hokkaido scallop shipment as proof that a managed restart is possible, but not as a sign that the issue has vanished. The real test will be whether the re-registration process speeds up and whether China keeps the flow open while continuing its inspections.
