Japan Fumes After Consulate Raid

The scenes, captured on video by an unknown cameraman, stunned Japan.

Chinese guards entering the grounds of the Japanese consulate in the northern Chinese city of Shenyang Friday and seizing two women and a little girl – all of them North Koreans.

The Chinese claimed they were protecting the consulate from terrorists. But the breach of etiquette brought a stinging rebuke from the Japanese foreign minister.

The video, shot from a nearby building and broadcast repeatedly on Japanese television, threatened to deepen a diplomatic dispute.

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi summoned Chinese Ambassador Wu Dawei and demanded that China release the detainees, apologize for the intrusion and pledge not to repeat such actions.

“This is a clear violation of international law and we will never make concessions,” Kawaguchi told reporters.

By evening, a team of top-ranking Japanese diplomats had left for China at the order of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who had already lodged a protest with Beijing. They are to investigate the incident and possibly negotiate with the Chinese.

“The longer settlement of this case is drawn out, the more these pictures will be shown all over the world,” Kawaguchi said of the video footage, warning that it could damage bilateral relations.

On Thursday, China said it was carrying out its obligation to protect Japanese diplomats and that police acted “in accordance with international law.” The scuffle occurred at the consulate in Shenyang, a city 125 miles inland from China's northeastern border with North Korea.

The video showed that two women, one carrying a small child, had clearly made it through the front gate of the consulate before three police officers tackled them. Two officers pulled one woman onto the sidewalk and an officer pinned the other woman to the ground inside the gate as the child looked on.

It was unclear who filmed the incident.

China said two other asylum seekers were also detained. The video shows them running into the compound ahead of the women, but doesn't show their arrests.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed on condition of anonymity that the two had made it inside the consulate building, where they were tracked down an hour later and led away by Chinese police. Public broadcaster NHK said they were tied up while Japanese consulate officials looked on.

Diplomatic offices are foreign territory under international treaty, and local authorities are generally not supposed to enter them without permission.

China, a close ally of North Korea, has been put in a difficult position by the surge of North Koreans seeking asylum at foreign diplomatic offices in Beijing.

Within the past two months, at least 28 North Koreans fleeing famine and repression at home have been allowed to leave for South Korea after entering embassies or United Nations offices in China.

The dispute over the video could also complicate Japan's attempts to obtain Chinese permission to raise the sunken wreck of a suspected North Korean spy boat, which sits inside China's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.

All of the 15 crew believed to have been aboard were presumed dead after it sank during a December gunbattle with the Japanese Coast Guard.

Tokyo suspects the boat was a North Korean spy vessel or drug runner and hopes an underwater probe, completed earlier this week, would provide conclusive evidence to push for a salvage of the ship.

Japanese Cabinet ministers also criticized Shenyang-based consulate staff for inaction.

“Judging from the video, it didn't appear that the consulate employees responded very actively,” Construction and Transport Minister Chikage Ogi said.

The video showed two men who appeared to be Japanese consulate staff emerging from the compound to watch the struggle. One staffer picked up what appeared to be an officer's hat and brushed it off.