Japan's overheated reaction to the May 8 North Korean refugee incident at the Japanese consulate-general in Shenyang, northeast China, is worrying.
Emotions began to flow with vivid video footage of two men running into the consulate building while Chinese policemen stationed at the entrance grappled with two women and a child following them. The fact that the police penetrated about a meter into the consulate premises was condemned as a blatant violation of Japanese sovereignty. China's inhuman attitude to refugees was also condemned.
The same video shows a consulate official quietly collecting debris at the gate and politely handing it over to the police. This alone makes it obvious that consulate staff were not too worried about either the sovereignty violation or the lack of humanism. Indeed, given Japan's consistent record of only granting asylum, and then most reluctantly, to refugees who make it to Japan, the attitude of the vice consul was hardly surprising.