Chinese Premier Refuses to Stand Next to Japanese Prime Minister at Photo Op
NTV’s “Bankisha” produces a photo that pretty much sums up recent Chinese diplomacy towards Japan:
In Saturday’s group photo marking the end of the East Asia-ASEAN Summit in Hanoi, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was apparently supposed to stand between Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam. Wen , having no desire to stand next to Kan, forced his way onto the other side of Nguyen. For a while, there was an awkward gap between Kan and the Vietnamese leader. (Australia’s Prime Minister Julia Gillard stepped in and filled the gap.)
As noted in an earlier post, the Chinese had a tantrum over Japan’s “ruining the atmosphere” of the summit and announced a last-minute cancellation of a formal meeting between Kan and Wen that was supposed to take place in Friday. The next morning, the Chinese “spontaneously” decided to grant Kan a measly 10-minute informal talk with Wen.
On Sunday, the Yomiuri ran an editorial about how “China’s erratic moves make relations difficult“:
We cannot help but say these are extremely poor reasons for canceling summit diplomacy. The impression is inescapable that China avoided the meeting by citing reasons that cannot be reasons, one after another, for fear of a backlash from hard-liners in China.
China’s rejection of the latest proposed summit meeting has only strengthened the impression that the country is difficult to deal with.
China accepted the informal meeting that finally did occur, though it was a mere 10 minutes, apparently because Beijing is concerned that it would become isolated internationally if its continued rejection of an official summit meeting fed the perception that China is alien to the rest of world.
Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit Japan in mid-November to attend the meeting of the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
China must not repeat this kind of behavior. We hope Beijing will accept an official summit meeting and tangibly demonstrate “mutually beneficial” relations by resuming negotiations for a treaty on development of the natural gas fields in the East China Sea, which it unilaterally suspended, and normalizing its rare earths exports to Japan.
It is essential for Japan to maintain its stance to accept a dialogue with China any time and calmly respond to the situation.
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