Japanese diplomat distorts facts

Japanese Ambassador to India Kenji Hiramatsu referred to Donglang, the site of an on-going standoff between China and India, as a disputed area and said no country should change the status quo by force in an interview with Indian media on Friday.

These remarks, interpreted by local media as being in India's favor, since India claims the road China is constructing in the area will change the status quo, are ill-grounded and misleading.

As a diplomat, Hiramatsu should not be so ignorant of the fact that there is no territorial dispute in the Donglang area, and that the root cause of the standoff stems from Indian troops' trespassing across the already delimited Sikkim section of the China-India boundary into Chinese territory. As Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying has rightfully pointed out, it is India, not China, that is trying to create trouble and change the status quo. Thus, there must be a hidden agenda behind Japanese diplomat's deliberate distortion of the facts.