This afternoon, the leaders of the unit asked to speak with me and told me that someone had complained through the 12345 hotline, complaining that my article “On the Issue of Japan’s Discharge of Nuclear Wastewater” published on this public account on August 24 contained inappropriate remarks, and showed me the relevant complaint information.
The complaint information shows that the complainant submitted the complaint at 18:28 on the evening of August 26, and their identity was completely anonymous, with no details revealed. The complainant attached the full screenshot of the public account article, and also specifically attached another screenshot, on which they marked the remarks they considered inappropriate with a thick red pen, including my comment on “nationalism” and the expression “three-year health care”.
I highly appreciate the complaint mechanism of the Shanghai public institutions: first, it does ensure the anonymity of the complainant’s identity; second, it allows the person being complained about to know clearly which words in which article triggered the complainant’s dissatisfaction. I have now deleted that article and sincerely apologize for the inappropriate remarks in it to all those who were offended, including the complainant.
Although this is my personal public account, I have revealed my unit information in many articles, so it is self-deception to say that the content on this public account only represents the individual and has nothing to do with the unit. In view of this, I accept the leader’s advice and will publish less content outside of my profession (botany, science and technology culture, etc.) and main interests (foreign languages, critical thinking, etc.), especially less content involving current affairs.
Thank you again for the complainant’s teachings.
Liu Su, respectfully presented
Related reading: On the Issue of Japan’s Discharge of Nuclear Wastewater
Today (August 24), the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, which was severely damaged and suffered a nuclear leak in the tsunami caused by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, began to discharge treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.
The earthquake and tsunami were first natural disasters, but natural disasters do not necessarily lead to the most serious Level 7 (major) nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, so there must be man-made disasters here. However, how to properly handle this huge man-made disaster can reflect different values.
The nuclear wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant is used to cool the melted nuclear fuel and avoid larger leakage accidents. These wastewaters contaminated with radioactive nuclides were directly discharged into the sea shortly after the accident due to the lack of relevant facilities, but most of them were later stored in specially made storage tanks, and they have been stored for 12 years.
Obviously, this wastewater cannot be stored like this forever, and there must be a final treatment method. Tokyo Electric Power Company, which is responsible for the operation of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, has proposed five different treatment plans. The Japanese government, together with the International Atomic Energy Agency, after discussing these plans, believes that the sea discharge method is the most reliable method, considering multiple factors. The principle is to use ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System) to remove the vast majority of radioactive nuclides from the wastewater, leaving mainly the most difficult to remove tritium (an isotope of hydrogen). Then, dilute the wastewater, which basically only contains tritium, with a large amount of seawater to make its concentration lower than the upper limit required by the emission standard, and then discharge it into the Pacific Ocean.
In 2021, the sea discharge method was officially submitted to the United Nations, and the United Nations entrusted the International Atomic Energy Agency to form a working group of 11 scientists (one of whom was Liu Senlin, an expert representing the Chinese government) to go to Japan for on-site inspection and evaluation of the plan. After two years of careful research, the working group acknowledged that Japan’s nuclear wastewater treatment was qualified and that the sea discharge method was technically feasible. This is the reason why Japan finally began to implement this plan today. The working group also called for continuous monitoring in the future because the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea is a process that will last for decades, in order to prevent cheating.
After the working group of the International Atomic Energy Agency reached the above conclusions, many countries recognized the work of the relevant experts. Only a few countries strongly opposed the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea, mainly China and South Korea. However, the opinions of the Koreans are not unified enough. For example, President Yoon Suk-yeol has publicly expressed support for the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea, which has seriously affected his domestic support rate. In contrast, China, from the official to the common people, almost unanimously opposes the discharge of nuclear wastewater into the sea by Japan, and even does not hesitate to speak ill of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which can be said to be of one mind.
There is no doubt that China and South Korea, because they suffered Japanese invasion in World War II, have solidified their hatred of Japan into a nationalist narrative after the war, which to a large extent determines the mainstream attitude of these two countries towards Japan’s discharge of nuclear wastewater. In this nationalist narrative, Japan is always guilty and will never be truly forgiven, and any criticism of Japan is reasonable and just. Therefore, they will not care about the storage cost of nuclear wastewater, and no matter what method Japan proposes for the discharge of nuclear wastewater, they will inevitably oppose it. In the final analysis, they don’t think there is any need to care about Japan as a country, no matter whether Japan lives or dies, in short, don’t disturb the mood of the master.
As a person who grew up in this social atmosphere, I can fully understand this East Asian-style national hatred psychology. Those who hold such a psychology and thus lose their rationality as soon as they touch on Japan-related topics are mostly ordinary people, at the average level of rationality of East Asians. Although not good enough, it is not too bad either. It’s like now, I think I can also understand the psychology of those ordinary people who insisted on strict prevention and control in the last year of “three-year health care”. For example, during the Shanghai silence period, there were members of the Shanghai Science Writers Association who questioned the strict prevention and control like Wang Jie (Wang Jie himself paid a certain price later because of his interview with experts from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and I will always respect him for this), and there were also members like Wang Bin who supported the strict prevention and control without any reason and would definitely oppose Wang Jie’s speech. Yan Shi, a molecular anthropology expert and associate professor at the Central University for Nationalities, also opposed the opening up from beginning to end, and of course he also clearly admitted that this was because his father was seriously ill and hospitalized, and he did not want his father to get sick. Even after the policy of strict prevention and control was terminated, Cao Tianyuan, a famous science writer who enjoys a reputation in the field of science popularization because of the book “The History of Quantum Physics”, still tried to manipulate charts to express his dissent to this policy shift. They have all made certain achievements in science popularization work, but of course, they are also ordinary people.
Frankly speaking, I myself have long been influenced by anti-Japanese thinking, and I believe that as citizens of the country that initiated World War II, all Japanese people have collective guilt. But last year, I was fortunate enough to meet W, a young international politics researcher, who reminded me that East Asian culture has always lacked a sense of forgiveness, so it is difficult to understand that forgiveness may actually be more able to achieve the purpose of transforming the defeated ethnic group than hatred and revenge. It’s like after Germany’s defeat, the Allied forces led by the United States implemented the so-called “anti-friendliness policy” in Germany, which was to ignore the Germans in the hope of stimulating the Germans’ sense of shame and self-blame. However, things went against their wishes, and this inexplicable humiliation did not play a role in urging the Germans to self-reflect, so the “anti-friendliness policy” could only be hastily ended not long after it was implemented.
I still can’t say that I have fully understood the truth that W said, but I will at least seriously reflect on it.
Discover more from 自由档案馆
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.