Japan officially blames China in consulate case

Japan Policy & Politics, May 20, 2002

TOKYO, May 13 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING PREMIER KOIZUMI'S COMMENTS, DETAILS OF SCENE JAPAN FINALLY LET CHINESE POLICE TAKE 5 N. KOREANS AWAY)

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

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

Kawaguchi 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.''

But it is uncertain whether the announcement can help weaken China's claim because the report acknowledged the Japanese side failed to require the Chinese police respect the boundaries of the Japanese consulate.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koiuzmi told reporters at his office shortly after Kawaguchi's news conference that Japan will take action ''in a resolute and cool-headed manner.''

Kawaguchi told reporters she has not yet heard details of a rumored plan to allow the North Koreans to seek asylum in a third country.

But she said, ''The bottom line is that the humanitarian point of view must be respected.''

Koizumi did not deny the possibility of letting the five go to a third country.

''It is favorable that thorough talks (between Japan and China) lead to a good resolution,'' he said.

Referring to differences in the two nations' claims over the actions of the Chinese police officers, Kawaguchi said only that Japan ''would like to discuss'' them in future bilateral meetings.

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

But in the report released Monday, Kawaguchi flatly denied most of China's claims over the issue of why the Chinese police officers failed to respect the consulate's boundaries.

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

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

But the report revealed the Japanese side chose to allow the Chinese police to take the five away from the consulate premises.

At 2:50 p.m. last Wednesday, a vehicle belonging to the intelligence section of the city of Shenyang stopped in front of a Chinese guardroom near the front gate of the consulate, apparently so the Chinese police could move the North Koreans into the vehicle.

Hideharu Umaki, the Japanese deputy consul general in charge of security, stood at a main door of the guardroom, his arms spread, and told the Chinese officers several times in Chinese to wait until the Japanese side made further decisions about the fate of the five North Koreans.

But Kunio Takahashi, a minister at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, reportedly told another deputy consul general near Umaki by cellular phone, ''Ultimately, it cannot be helped that (the asylum seekers) may be taken away.''

Umaki then dropped his arms and moved so that the Chinese police could take the detained North Koreans into the vehicle, the report said.

But Takahashi's comment and Umaki's actions were aimed only at averting additional incidents, the report said.

It said the behavior of the Japanese staff gave the Chinese police no tacit consent to act however they chose.

Kawaguchi admitted, however, that her ministry's response to the incident was inadequate. She noted that consulate staff lacked 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'' showing one of consulate staff picking up the Chinese officers' caps from where they fell during the struggle to evict two female asylum seekers and a small girl, Kawaguchi said.

But Kawaguchi defended some of the actions of the consulate officials. She said 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.

She said that had the consulate staff known the five asylum seekers were North Korean, they might have acted differently.

''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.