A US response meant to mitigate a Chinese boycott inadvertently demonstrates China’s economic might:
The United States has for the first time begun buying Japanese seafood to supply its military there, a response to China’s ban on such products imposed after Tokyo released treated water from its crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.
Unveiling the initiative in a Reuters interview on Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said Washington should also look more broadly into how it could help offset China’s ban that he said was part of its “economic wars.”
China, which had been the biggest buyer of Japanese seafood, says its ban is due to food safety fears.
The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog vouched for the safety of the water release that began in August from the plant wrecked by a 2011 tsunami. G7 trade ministers on Sunday called for the immediate repeal of bans on Japanese food.
“It’s going to be a long-term contract between the U.S. armed forces and the fisheries and co-ops here in Japan,” Emanuel said. “The best way we have proven in all the instances to kind of wear out China’s economic coercion is come to the aid and assistance of the targeted country or industry,” he said.
The first purchase of seafood by the U.S. under the scheme involves just shy of a metric ton of scallops, a tiny fraction of more than 100,000 tons of scallops that Japan exported to mainland China last year.
I’m sure the Japanese seafood industry appreciates the gesture. But one can’t help but ask two questions:
- Why hasn’t the USA been buying Japanese seafood to supply its troops occupying Japan until now?
- How, exactly, is replacing less than 1/100,000th of the lost business, or .001 percent, going to keep the Japanese seafood industry solvent?
As with seafood, so with artillery shells…