Yoon’s G7 Escapade May Erode His Domestic Support

On April 10, Park Jin, South Korea’s foreign minister, feted the ambassadors from the Group of Seven. “I felt as if we were the G-8,” he beamed, recounting the bonhomie to a gathering of lawmakers. “I believe South Korea is now in the top eight, standing shoulder to shoulder with the G-7,” he added.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol tested that proposition at the G-7 summit held from May 19 to 21 in Hiroshima, Japan. The agenda revolved around framing collective responses to climate change, food and energy insecurity, and challenges to the rules-based international order. It was a fitting match for Yoon’s fondness for grand foreign policy terms, such as South Korea’s role as a “global pivotal state” or “compass for freedom.”

Yet the South Korean public faults his diplomacy largely for failing to pick nits on their behalf. In a recent Gallup poll, some 60 percent disapproved of Yoon, with the most frequently cited reason being his diplomacy. The dominant perception is that Yoon sacrifices domestic interests to advance a unified Japan-South Korea front against their autocratic neighbors.

Currently, the public ire is directed toward Japan’s decision to discharge treated but still radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean from July onward. Yoon’s handling of the subject topped the list of South Koreans’ concerns about his trip to Hiroshima.

Since a megaquake and tsunami mauled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been dousing its melted reactors with water. The water used as a coolant then becomes contaminated with radionuclides, chemical elements that release hazardous radiation as they spread and break down in nature. Therefore, TEPCO has employed the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), filtration technology based on chemical reactions, to sieve the contaminated water of dozens of radionuclides – barring tritium, a radioactive variant of hydrogen.

Now, 1.3 million tonnes of such treated yet still radioactive water lie in storage tanks on site. Japan plans to dump the water into the Pacific Ocean, saying that the lack of storage space is hindering other necessary clean-up processes.

TEPCO maintains that the discharge will have a negligible impact, as the water will be vastly diluted to the point of its tritium content being less than the naturally occurring dose in the environment. Still, South Koreans are not convinced due to conflicting evidence.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an authoritative body ensuring nuclear safety, tritium is not the sole radionuclide remaining after treatment. Rather, “C-14 and I-129 are now in the top three radionuclides contributing most to the overall dose… from the discharge of the ALPS treated water,” its April report stated. Every living thing can incorporate carbon-14 in their system through the carbon cycle, resulting in varying concentration factors. Meanwhile, iodine-129 disperses rapidly in water and remains in the environment for millions of years, having “the greatest impact… if released.”

However, the IAEA report published in May noted that Japan has not “set explicit discharge limits for radionuclides other than tritium, particularly for those that have a more significant radiological impact when discharged.” The IAEA advised the Japanese authorities to provide further information on their radiological behavior in the environment.

Even tritium, the lesser evil, has come into question. Contrary to the Japanese government’s assertion today that tritium doesn’t accumulate in humans and other organisms, it admitted back in 2020 that a portion of tritium assumes organically binding properties, leading to bioaccumulation.

In addition, Greenpeace argues that international dose standards are calculated for single discharges, not multiple discharges over decades and that uncertainty surrounds gradual buildup of organically bound tritium (OBT). The IAEA also recognized that “there are uncertainties about OBT formation in seafood and the associated doses to humans, flora and fauna.”

These concerns have resonated with South Koreans. One poll found that 93 percent of South Koreans said the Fukushima discharge endangers food security. In another recent poll, 92 percent opposed Japan’s unilateral decision to discharge the water, and 83 percent said they would curtail their seafood consumption after the contaminated water was released.

As Yoon was enjoying refreshments and sake made of ingredients from Fukushima, civic groups crammed the streets of Seoul censuring him for his acquiescence. All of South Korea’s opposition parties are pressuring Yoon to stand up to Japan, while coastal cities call on him to demand more transparency and objectivity from Japan.

For his part, Yoon seems to believe that the issue is already being sufficiently addressed. During Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio’s earlier visit to South Korea, the Japanese government agreed to allow a South Korean inspection team to conduct an on-site investigation of the water purification system and ask questions of both TECPO officials and Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority. The inspection was branded as a major diplomatic victory by the Yoon administration.

South Korea’s inspection team arrived in Tokyo on May 21, the same day that Yoon held a tête-à-tête with Kishida in Hiroshima. During its five-day schedule, the team held meetings with TEPCO and headed to Fukushima for a closer look.

Yet critics said that excursion proved pro forma, as Japan insisted on dubbing the team a “delegation” to be merely briefed on its activities, “not to evaluate or certify” the contaminated water. Hardly allaying their qualms, the team brought no testing equipment and excluded civilian experts and journalists from the roster for on-site inspection.

The obscured nature of the visit has fostered concerns that it is yet another gambit of Yoon’s, who after all once denied radioactive contamination from the Fukushima disaster, to shield Japan from criticism.

Given South Koreans’ reactivity to both nuclear issues and Japan-related issues, Yoon’s approval rating looks ever-more precarious as the discharge date nears. If Japan’s plan is ineluctable, he may at least stage a public show of protest. Saving face at home is as important as at the G-7.