Japan officially blames China in consulate case

Japan Policy & Politics, May 20, 2002

TOKYO, May 13 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING FOREIGN MINISTER KAWAGUCHI'S COMMENTS, DETAILS OF FOREIGN MINISTRY INCIDENT REPORT)

Japan on Monday officially denied China's claim that Tokyo gave Chinese police officers permission to enter the Japanese Consulate General ground in Shenyang, northeastern China, and seize five North Korean asylum seekers.

Releasing an investigative report into the incident that occurred Wednesday last week, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said the Chinese officers violated international law by entering the Japanese consulate premises without permission, and demanded that Beijing hand the five asylum seekers over to Japan.

The foreign minister referred to the 1961 Vienna Convention that stipulates the premises of diplomatic missions ''shall be inviolable'' and ''the agents of the receiving state may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.''

Kawaguchi told a press conference that she has not yet heard details of a rumored plan to allow the five to seek asylum in a third country, but said, ''The bottom line is that the humanitarian point of view must be respected.''

In reference to clear differences in claims between the two nations over the actions of the Chinese police officers, Kawaguchi said only that Japan ''would like to discuss'' the differences in future bilateral meetings with China.

The announcement came after China defended its police officers' actions, claiming they acted with Japan's consent in a bid to assure security of the Japanese facility, which China claimed was threatened by the intrusion of the five.

Kawaguchi, however, in the report released Monday, flatly denied most of claims made by China over the issue of why the Chinese police officers did not respect the boundaries of the consulate.

''There is no truth that Japan gave permission to the armed Chinese police officers to enter the consulate ground when they entered it for the first time,'' the report said.

Nor did Japan give Chinese police permission to remove the five North Koreans from the consulate grounds, the report said.

The report acknowledged that the Japanese consulate staff did not physically attempt to stop the Chinese officers' actions in the incident.

Ministry officials quoted Kunio Takahashi, minister at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, as telling the staff in Shenyang, ''Ultimately, it cannot be helped that they may be taken away,'' referring to the asylum seekers.

Such counsel, however, was only aimed at averting additional unexpected incidents, and the behavior of the Japanese staff did not give the Chinese police tacit consent to act as they chose, the report said.

Kawaguchi also admitted her ministry's response to the incident was inadequate, noting that consulate staff did not have a keen sense of crisis and that the ministry's system of command and communications was inadequate.

''I thought, 'Hey, what are they doing there?' when I saw TV footage'' that showed one of consulate staff members picking up the caps of the Chinese officers that had fallen on the ground during their struggle to evict two female asylum seekers, who clung to the gates of the consulate, and a small girl, Kawaguchi said.

But the foreign minister defended some of the actions of the consulate officials, saying it would have been difficult for staff at the scene to realize the police officers were not detaining people who had abandoned their homeland, suggesting the staff may have thought the asylum seekers were Chinese.

Had the consulate staff members known the five asylum seekers were North Korean, they may have acted in a different manner, she said.

''Anyway, it should be regarded as a problem that our staff initially thought the incident was only a brawl or a squabble,'' Kawaguchi said.

Tokyo's report was compiled after an on-site probe into the case was conducted over the weekend by a team of officials led by Masaaki Ono, director general of the ministry's Consular and Migration Affairs Department.