Japan argues that the water being released is harmless and heavily diluted with seawater. It is also being released gradually over decades.
The International Atomic Energy Agency and many leading economies have sided with Japan.
But China, later joined by Russia, criticised the release and banned all Japanese seafood imports, saying that Japan was polluting the environment.
Experts from the IAEA and other agencies, including those from China, have surveyed the environmental impact of the release, including by taking water and fish samples.
The Chinese ban has particularly harmed scallop fishermen in the northern Hokkaido region, some 500km north of the Fukushima plant, who rely on Chinese factories for shelling the molluscs.
TEPCO and other Japanese businesses were swamped with crank calls from China after the initial release, but now the number is negligible, the TEPCO spokeswoman said.
Source: CNA
