Japan officially exited the International Whaling Commission on Monday and the first commercial whaling fleet, headed by the Nisshin Maru, set sail from port. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

Some media outlets have reported on the change as if Japan had stopped killing whales and resumed the practice on Monday. That's not the case. Even when it was a member of the IWC, Japan never ceased its whaling practices.

The IWC passed the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling in 1986, which forbids whaling for commercial purposes. However, over the past 30 years, Japan has killed over 17,000 minke and other whales for "scientific research", although its researchers have only submitted two essays considered useful since 2005.

The IWC allows the whalers to make good use of the remaining parts of whale corpses after scientific research to avoid wasting resources, but it is these "remaining parts" that have been the true purpose of Japan's whaling in the name of scientific research.

By exiting from the IWC, Japan has removed its fig-leaf and openly resumed commercial whaling within its Exclusive Economic Zone. However, it has paid a heavy price, too, because it is forbidden to do whaling even under the disguise of scientific research in other waters such as the Southern Ocean.

With that change, the Japanese whaling industry, which has been heavily subsidized by the government, will have to get used to the market deciding its business volume, especially if the government withdraws its helping hand as planned. The consumption of whale meat is declining with "Do not eat whales" becoming the consensus of increasingly more people in Japan.

Japan's commercial whaling industry can hardly survive without any demand for whale meat. It is to be hoped that Japan's leaving the IWC marks the final days of its whaling.