‘Ironic’ Asian Games theme song’s ‘share the sea’ lyric sparks calls from Chinese fans for Japan boycott amid Fukushima waste water row
Social media users see ironic side of opening line, which refers to ‘sharing the same sea and sky’, amid Fukushima waste water rowTheme song titled ‘The Love We Share’ released on same day Japan started releasing treated waste water into the Pacific OceanAsian Games 2023Nicolas AtkinPublished: 6:15pm, 24 Aug, 2023Why you can trust SCMP
Chinese fans have used the “ironic” lyrics of the official Hangzhou Asian Games theme song to call for Japan to be boycotted from the event amid the row over the release of nuclear-contaminated Fukushima waste water.
The music video for the official song of the 19th Asiad was released on Thursday – 30 days before the start of the showpiece event, and on the same day Japan started to release the treated radioactive waste water into the Pacific Ocean.
Discharging the waste water, which was contaminated by the meltdown of plant reactors in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, will take between 30 and 40 years, and was called “extremely selfish and irresponsible” by China, and was also criticised by local fishermen on Thursday.
It all served to undercut the message of the Asian Games theme song, titled “The Love We Share” and performed by Sun Nan, which has been described by state media as “a musical ode to unity”.
“With the theme of an ‘Asian community with a shared future,’ the video presents iconic landmarks and awe-inspiring landscapes from across Asia, as well as people of different colour and ethnicity coming together to celebrate as ‘one Asian family’,” CGTN said in the description of its YouTube post of the official video.