(March 24): China’s Foreign Ministry said a man claiming to be an active officer of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces forcefully entered the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo, prompting protest from the Chinese government.
The person scaled the wall to enter the embassy on Tuesday morning and threatened to kill Chinese diplomatic personnel in the name of god, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday.
“China is deeply shocked at this incident and has lodged strong démarche and protests with Japan,” Lin told a regular media briefing. He said the incident severely threatened the safety of Chinese diplomatic personnel and the security of diplomatic facilities, calling it “extremely egregious” in nature.
“China urges the Japanese side to get to the bottom of the incident, bring relevant personnel to justice and give China a responsible answer,” Lin said.
A spokesperson at Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force Staff Office said the ministry is still gathering information on the alleged incident, declining to comment further.
Relations between the East Asian powers have nosedived since November, when Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested that her country could be militarily involved if China attempts to forcibly seize Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy claimed by Beijing.
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China has ramped up diplomatic and economic pressure on Tokyo to force Takaichi to retract her remarks. Last month, Beijing signalled it won’t drop its pressure campaign by blacklisting 20 Japanese companies after Takaichi won a landslide victory that boosted her mandate.
At the press briefing on Tuesday, Lin said the incident demonstrated “the rampant far-right ideologies and forces in Japan, the mounting danger of new militarism and the Japanese government’s longstanding erroneous policy in history, Taiwan and other major core issues concerning China-Japan relations”.
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