Japan appeared to send mixed signals yesterday to China over a Japanese diplomat who committed suicide, a case that has worsened the already strained relations between them.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso told a public meeting in Tokyo on Saturday that the Shanghai-based consular official committed suicide to avoid divulging top secret codes to a Chinese agent, reports said.
Meanwhile, senior politicians of Japan's ruling coalition left for Beijing yesterday for talks with Chinese leaders, a trip seen here to show Tokyo's hopes of keeping alive dialogue with Beijing.
The diplomat hanged himself in May 2004 and Japanese allegations that Chinese agents were involved in his death have aggravated tensions already strained over Japan's history and rival claims to energy resources.
The Tokyo government had previously declined to give details of the suicide, only explaining that it involved what it described as a "regrettable action" on the part of Chinese security agents.
"The Chinese side blackmailed him over an affair with a woman," Aso was quoted as saying.
"A table of random numbers for coding was what they blackmailed him for," he said.
"He killed himself, as he could not sell his country out. It is clear as he left a suicide note," he said, according to reports by Kyodo News, public broadcaster NHK and several dailies.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi earlier said that there was no sign that any confidential information had been leaked in the case.
The spat comes at a time when bilateral ties are strained over Koizumi's repeated visits to a shrine, which honors the Japanese war dead including condemned World War II leaders.
Hidenao Nakagawa, chief policy planner of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, led a delegation to Beijing for talks with Chinese Communist Party leaders.
The two regional giants held talks in Tokyo earlier this month for the first regular meeting between their vice-foreign ministers in four months but failed to narrow differences.
The countries are also at odds over oil and gas development in a disputed area of the East China Sea.
Japan was angered over China's efforts to scuttle its bid last year for a permanent UN Security Council seat.
The suicide scandal, reportedly involving a communications officer in his forties and a karaoke club hostess, surfaced in a Japanese magazine expose last December.
China immediately denied the accusations.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) called on Japan early last month to "calmly and properly handle this issue and not to create new trouble for Sino-Japanese relations."
Aso, whose plain-talking approach has angered China and South Korea since he took office in a Cabinet reshuffle last October, warned Japanese diplomats of the danger of being set up by female agents.
"As diplomats are not usually very attractive, they should be alert when they are approached by a woman," he said.
"This kind of case is commonplace within their circles," he said.
The foreign minister also drew protests from China this month over remarks putting Taiwan's high educational standards down to Japan's colonial rule last century.
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