Foreign Minister Taro Aso on Monday backed away from an earlier claim that China lured a consular official with a female spy, saying he offered the account only as a possible scenario.
Aso, whose caustic comments have angered Beijing in the past, said over the weekend that a consular official who committed suicide in Shanghai was blackmailed by Chinese intelligence agents who set him up with a woman to obtain classified information.
"I was just offering it as an example. It did not have any meaning beyond that," Aso told a committee meeting in the Lower House.