Japan has expressed “regret” after an on-duty soldier broke into the Chinese embassy in Tokyo and allegedly threatened to kill diplomats.
Kodai Murata, a 23-year-old officer with the Self-Defence Forces, was arrested by the Tokyo metropolitan police for allegedly scaling the walls of the heavily guarded embassy carrying an 18cm knife on Tuesday around 9am local time.
He was restrained by the embassy staff and handed over to the local police, who arrested him on suspicion of trespassing.
The suspect said he was "hoping to meet the ambassador to tell him to refrain from making hardline remarks, and if that request was rejected, I wanted to surprise him by killing myself," the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
The embassy incident has further soured relations between Beijing and Tokyo, which plummeted after Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi's comments on Taiwan.
China's foreign ministry on Wednesday demanded that Japan investigate and severely punish the officer, a day after blaming the Japanese government for allowing alleged neo-militarism to thrive in the country.
Minoru Kihara, Japan’s top government spokesperson, called the incident “regrettable” and said the government would take measures to prevent it from happening again.
“I understand that the police are continuing their investigation to clarify the incident and have already taken necessary security measures, such as increasing the number of police officers assigned to guard the Chinese embassy in Tokyo,” Mr Kihara said.
Beijing has severely criticised the incident and lodged a formal protest with Tokyo.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the incident had "seriously threatened the safety of embassy personnel and damaged its dignity".
He blamed far-right ideologies for the intrusion, which he said exposed “deep-rooted harmful effects of the Japanese government’s erroneous policies on major core issues concerning China-Japan relations".
“We once again urge the Japanese side to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident immediately, severely punish the perpetrator and provide the Chinese side with a responsible explanation,” Mr Lin said.
Bilateral relations between the two neighbours have substantially deteriorated since the Japanese prime minister suggested last November that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Tokyo.
In response, Beijing instituted export and travel restrictions and repeatedly demanded a retraction. It reinstated a ban on Japanese seafood imports and export restrictions on “dual-use” technologies as well.
Beijing has since accused Japan of seeking to remilitarise, citing Ms Takaichi’s stance on Taiwan and Tokyo’s increased defence budget.
China considers Taiwan, a self-governed island, a part of its territory and doesn’t rule out the use of force to reunify it with the mainland.
Japan said it will downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of the most important” in an annual diplomatic report, citing a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year.
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