Ambassador to China slams Ishihara's Senkakus plan

LONDON — Japan's ambassador to China, Uichiro Niwa, has strongly criticized Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's plan to buy the disputed Senkaku Islands in an interview published by a British newspaper Thursday.

Ishihara's envisioned purchase of three of the Senkaku islets in the East China Sea that are also claimed and referred to by China as the Diaoyu isles, could result in "an extremely grave crisis" in economic and other bilateral relations, Niwa told the Financial Times.

While the move faces a variety of obstacles, a mere prepurchase survey of the islands could be "diplomatically incendiary," Niwa said. "We cannot allow decades of past effort to (come) to nothing."

Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba immediately admonished Niwa over the remarks, advising him that his personal views "differ from the stance of the government" and instructing him to be more diplomatic in the future, according to government officials.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura also said Thursday that Niwa was only expressing his own viewpoint in the interview and that they are not representative of the government's position on the issue.

The Financial Times described Niwa's remarks as "by far the strongest sign of Japanese central government disquiet" over Ishihara's move to acquire the three islets from a private titleholder based in Saitama Prefecture.