Chinese and South Korean leaders chatted with evacuees and tasted local produce in Japan’s battered northeast on Saturday, in a show of support for a nation struggling with a humanitarian and nuclear crisis set off by a deadly earthquake and tsunami in March. Premier Wen Jiabao signalled Beijing’s willingness to ease restrictions on Japanese food imports imposed by China and other nations, including South Korea, after the disaster crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant and fanned contamination fears.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who hosts an annual summit of the region’s three leading economies this weekend, has counted on the event to help ease concerns at home and abroad about the safety of Japan’s nuclear facilities and farm exports. In a symbolic gesture, Wen and South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak met Kan in Fukushima city, about 60 km (37 miles) northwest of the stricken power plant that triggered the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl. Outside a sports complex that was turned into an evacuation centre after the quake, the three leaders ate local cucumbers, tomatoes and other produce to demonstrate the food was safe.
