The suffocating smog that blanketed swathes of China is now hitting parts of Japan, sparking warnings yesterday of health risks for the young and the sick.
The Japanese Ministry of the Environment’s Web site has been overloaded as worried users log on to try to find out what is coming their way.
“Access to our air pollution monitoring system has been almost impossible since last week and the telephone here has been constantly ringing because worried people keep asking us about the impact on health,” a ministry official said.
Pictures of Beijing and other Chinese cities shrouded in thick, choking smog played out across television screens in Japan last week.
News programs have broadcast maps showing a swirl of pollution gathering strength across China and then spreading out over the ocean toward Japan.
Pinks, reds and oranges that denote the highest concentrations form a finger of smog that inches upward to the main southern island of Kyushu.
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing are already strained, over the sovereignty of the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), claimed by Taiwan, China and Japan, which calls them the Senkakus. On the streets of Tokyo, reaction was tart.
“China is our neighbor and all sorts of problems happen between us all the time,” Takaharu Abiko, 50, said. “It is very worrying. This is dangerous pollution, like poison, and we can’t protect ourselves. It’s scary.”
Japanese officials were coy about lumping all the blame on their huge neighbor, but Yasushi Nakajima of the environment ministry said: “We can’t deny there is an impact from pollution in China.”
Air pollution over the west of Japan has exceeded government limits over the past few days, with tiny particulate matter a problem, Atsushi Shimizu of Japan’s National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) said.
Prevailing winds from the west bring airborne particles from the Asian mainland, he said.
Of specific concern is the concentration of particles 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, which has been as high as 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air over recent days in northern Kyushu. The government’s safety limit is 35 micrograms.
Yellow sand from the deserts of Mongolia and China is a known source of these particles, as are exhausts from cars and smoke from factories.
“At this time of year they are definitely not yellow sand, so they’re toxic particles,” Shimizu said, adding that “people with respiratory diseases should be careful.”
Toshihiko Takemura, an associate professor of Kyushu University who runs another air pollution monitoring site, said “the impact of air pollution originating from China on Japan was scientifically discovered more than a decade ago.”
“Especially in Kyushu, the level of air pollution has been detectable in everyday lives since a few years ago,” he told reporters. “People in eastern and northern Japan are now belatedly noticing the cross-border air pollution.”
Takemura added that pollution in Japan over the past few days has not been quite as bad as it was in February 2011, when “very hazy days continued for several days in western Japan.”
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS