Isolda Morillo 莫沫

This morning, a man who claimed himself to be a sitting officer of Japan’s Self-Defence Forces broke into the Chinese embassy in Tokyo and threatened to kill Chinese diplomats. China is deeply shocked and has lodged strong protests with Japan. This egregious incident is a serious violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and posed a grave threat to the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic personnel and facilities. The incident once again highlighted the danger of the rampant spread of far-right impact and neo-militarism in the country. It also reveals the toxicity of the Japanese government’s erroneous policies on vital issues concerning China-Japan relations such as history and Taiwan, and Japan’s failure in maintaining discipline in SDF and in fulfilling its responsibility to protect the Chinese diplomatic and consular premises and personnel. China asks the Japanese side to thoroughly investigate the incident, bring the full weight of law to bear on the perpetrator and fully account for the incident. Japan must take concrete actions to ensure the safety and security of Chinese diplomatic and consular premises and personnel, reflect on and correct its erroneous policies on China and get rid of the root cause for such incidents once and for all. The international community needs to stay on high alert against Japan’s accelerating rightward turn and loss of control inside the rapidly expanding SDF.