China Revokes, Then Reissues Osaka Governor’s Invitation to Shanghai Expo
A couple days ago, the organizers of the 2010 Shanghai Expo contacted the Osaka city government and informed them that Osaka Governor Toru Hashimoto was no longer welcome to deliver a speech on the last day of the expo. The sudden un-invite made the straight-talking Hashimoto quite angry, and he made his feelings very clear to the Japanese press:
Hashimoto told reporters the cancellation came ”perhaps because they took into account the domestic situation” in which anti-Japanese demonstrators have been taking to the streets.
He also said, ”This has undercut my confidence (in them) very much. I don’t want to become a human (who treats others) as China did.”
The prefectural government will mount an official protest to the secretariat soon.
Hashimoto has long placed emphasis on keeping friendly ties with China by visiting the country five times. During his tour of the World Expo in July, he inspected the Osaka Pavilion, while holding talks with former Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan in Beijing.
When commenting about how much the incident had damaged his trust towards China, he said it was now at “zero” or “negative 20,000 points” [ほぼゼロ。マイナス2万点だ].
It seems that somebody in China realized that the sudden and rude revoking of Hashimoto’s invitation would do nothing but hurt Sino-Japanese relations, so he was re-invited. A letter was sent claiming that the un-invite had been an “error”:
Hashimoto plans to accept the re-invitation.
Related stories:
- Anti-Japanese riots are not good for tourism: 11,000 people have canceled their reservations for Japan Airlines or All Nippon Airways flights between Japan and China.
- Japan will increase the Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine fleet to 22 from the current 16. The move is seen as a response to increasing Chinese naval activity near Japanese waters.
- Japan plans to team up with Vietnam on the development of rare earth metals to reduce its dependence on China.
- China is still not willing to confirm that its leaders plan to talk with Japanese leaders at the upcoming Asian summit in Hanoi. There is apparently some anger over the fact that Foreign Minister Maehara said that China’s hysterical reaction to the Senkaku dispute was “hysterical.”
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