opinion

The Japanese fisheries agency on May 9 expressed its stand to add finback whales to the targets of commercial whaling which was resumed in 2019.

On the same day, the chief cabinet secretary in a press conference said that though there are international criticisms about Japan’s whaling culture, “it is important to carry forward our traditional dietary culture”.

The Japanese authorities have already allocated 5.1 billion yen in this year’s budget to support the use of whale meat in school meals and the promotion of sales by whalers. On May 21, a home-made whaling mother ship Kangeimaru which can reach the Antarctic sea put out to sea.

Japan is becoming ever more undisguised in its behaviour of not caring about the marine ecosystem, a treasure common to mankind, and neglecting the demand of the international community for its own interests.

As is well known, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) has introduced a ban on commercial whaling in 1986 with an eye to protecting cetacean resources.

However, Japan has always been busy hunting whales under the pretext of “scientific research”.

According to information available, the number of whales caught by Japan in the waters of the Antarctic and North Pacific amounted to 850 on an annual average and more than 120 out of 330 whales caught in the Antarctic waters from December 2017 to the end of February the following year were pregnant and 128 were calves.

Japan officially withdrew from the IWC in June 2019 and since then has openly caught whales for commercial use and committed such piratical acts as crashing into a boat of an anti-whaling organization and arresting its members.

The number of whales which are under protection worldwide is decreasing significantly nowadays, and plastic waste floating in the sea is also threatening the life of whales.

Under such circumstances, Japan’s behaviour of getting hell-bent on hunting whales rather than protecting them is really infuriating.

It is a vivid expression of the greed peculiar to Japan which does not hesitate to exterminate the protected animals, the common wealth of mankind, for its own interests.

The international community should never tolerate Japan’s whaling.