Where frosty relations between China and Japan are concerned, the pen is mightier than the sword.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) appeared to make clear his continuing displeasure with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he ignored Koizumi's request to borrow his pen at a signing ceremony yesterday at the East Asia Summit in Malaysia.
Wen had already refused to formally meet one-on-one with Koizumi at the summit amid a feud over the Japanese leader's visits to a shrine honoring war dead, including those executed for war crimes committed in China and elsewhere.
PHOTO: EPA
As leaders of the newly inaugurated East Asia Summit were signing a declaration on the group's establishment, Koizumi, seated next to Wen, leaned over and asked to borrow his pen.
Wen ignored him for several seconds until Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, smiling broadly, intervened to repeat the request.
Wen then passed the pen to Koizumi with a smile, but the incident was widely noted amid an otherwise uneventful ceremony that concluded the 16-nation summit's formal business.
The snub came just a day after Koizumi said that he failed to understand why Wen had allowed the disagreement to spoil their meeting.
"No two nations are without their share of differences. I cannot understand why China won't have a meeting because of one problem," Koizumi said.
Wen on Monday had said Koizumi was fully responsible for the freeze in high-level contacts because his five visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine while serving as prime minister had "deeply hurt the feelings of the Chinese people."
Wen has ignored most of Koizumi's attempts at affability during the summit's group photos and other public events, although the men did banter about seafood during a luncheon on Monday.
Addressing a news conference later, Abdullah refused to comment on the incident.
"Don't read into body language. I don't want to read into that," Abdullah said.
However, he added, that the China-Japan row had not affected the summit.
"They were participating in the discussions. They were sitting together ... they will sort it out," he said.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
RSS