The police intrusion into the Japanese Consulate General in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang on May 8 has revealed, both here and abroad, the sorry state of Japanese diplomacy.

A widely aired video clearly showed that armed Chinese police entered consulate grounds without Japanese consent. That was a violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Affairs, which prohibits entry into a foreign consulate without consent.

The problem with Japan is the lack of determination by consulate officials in protecting the national interest in a time of crisis. On the same day, it has been revealed, the ambassador to China, Koreshige Anami, told embassy personnel to "prevent suspicious people from entering embassy grounds without permission."

A "play it safe" mentality is behind the series of corruption scandals involving Foreign Ministry officials. Essentially, it is this mind-set that caused the Shenyang debacle, which has developed into a major diplomatic dispute between Japan and China, with dire implications for the situation on the Korean Peninsula. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should take the initiative to rebuild the foreign service from the ground up.

The day after the incident, the Society to Change, a private advisory panel to Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, presented an interim report listing problems plaguing the Foreign Ministry. Here are the highlights:

* The ministry's weakness as an organization, particularly in management, makes it amenable to falling under the influence of some Diet members.

* Some ranking officials lack conviction and pride.

* Awareness that the ministry serves the public is absent.

* A misguided elitism prevails.

* Competitive principles are missing among ministry employees.

* Existing conditions discourage talented employees.

As a result of all of these problems, the ministry's ability to send policy messages has been weakened.

Lower House lawmaker Muneo Suzuki, a former Liberal Democratic Party member who used to have strong influence on the ministry, has been involved in a string of scandals, including alleged interference with bidding on foreign-aid projects for the Northern Territories, the Russian-held islands off Hokkaido. The bidding scandal has taken a new turn with the arrest of his official secretary. Still, an opposition motion calling for Suzuki's resignation from the Diet was rejected by the LDP as doubts remain about his role in the alleged bid collusion.

The Foreign Ministry has been hit directly by the arrest of Masaru Sato, a former Russian affairs analyst with the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau, on a charge of breach of trust. Sato, who had close ties with Suzuki, is accused of misappropriating 33 million yen from the Cooperation Committee for travel expenses to attend an international academic meeting and for other purposes unrelated to the committee's objective of helping former Soviet republics.

The decision to disburse the money was reportedly made by Kazuhiko Togo, former director of the European and Oceanic Affairs Bureau, who also had cozy ties with Suzuki. In April, Kawaguchi dismissed Togo as ambassador to the Netherlands, saying he had sown confusion in Japan's diplomatic dealings with Russia.

Earlier, the Tokyo District Court found two former ministry officials guilty of fraud. One is the former logistics chief in charge of VIP trips abroad, who was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for embezzling 500 million yen from the ministry's slush fund. The other, an assistant division chief, was sentenced to two years in jail for defrauding the ministry of 400 million yen through padded hotel bills. The court stated that the ministry as a whole was prone to the misuse of taxpayer money, with many sections running a pool of off-the-book funds.

Misguided elitism, one of the problems cited in the interim report, has its roots in the ministry's peculiar makeup. According to the report, the elitist mentality of ranking bureaucrats, or career diplomats, has two sides: a sense of superiority and privilege over those in the outside world, and a tendency to discriminate against noncareer bureaucrats.

A number of career diplomats succeed to the diplomatic profession just as aristocrats inherit their status. They usually run in the fast lane of the career track, holding eminent positions in the ministry, as their fathers and grandfathers did. For example, former ambassador Togo's grandfather was foreign minister during World War II, and his father served as ambassador to the United States after the war.

Not all career diplomats are "aristocratic"; still, privileged bureaucrats are prone to arrogant elitism. It seems that inflated pride often distorts their sense of mission. This may be partly responsible for their cozy ties with certain legislators.

The Shenyang incident has shown that the Foreign Ministry and its diplomatic missions are grossly insensitive to the international situation. Before May 8, many North Koreans had found refuge at foreign embassies in Beijing. Although Shenyang is near the North Korean border, the Consulate General appears to have been totally unprepared for the possible entry of North Korean defectors.

The interim report calls for corrective action: "Responsible officials and key personnel at diplomatic missions must be accurately informed of the state of on-site consular activities so that they can take appropriate action in an emergency."

The Shenyang fiasco has exposed the "inappropriate" response by consulate and embassy officials and personnel. The interim report gives direction to ministry reform: "Foreign Ministry employees must have the sense that they are working to promote the national interest under a long and medium-term diplomatic vision and strategy." Indeed, the absence of a "long and medium-term vision and strategy" is the biggest reason for confusion in Japanese diplomacy.

Karl von Clausewitz, the 19th-century Prussian army officer, said in his treatise "On War" that "war is the continuation of politics by other means." Adding a twist to that definition, Hisashi Owada, the former ambassador to the United Nations, once said, "Diplomacy is war by other means." Referring to the Congress of Vienna, held in 1815 to reshape the European order following the end of the Napoleonic wars, Owada said: "While the conference 'danced,' diplomats engaged in a struggle as fierce as war. Diplomacy without strategy does not succeed."

The message is clear enough: Stopgap diplomacy cannot protect the national interest. Foreign Minister Kawaguchi has her work cut out: establishing a tough foreign service as soon as possible and thereby restoring public confidence in the Foreign Ministry.