“Regrettable.” That’s the word both Japan’s finance minister and the head of the Bank of Japan used to describe their Chinese counterparts who canceled appearances at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank this month.
Why would high Chinese officials skip the two gatherings? State media initially referred to scheduling conflicts, but Beijing then went mum.
Yet it’s clear to most observers why Chinese Finance Minister Xie Xuren and central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan pulled out at the last minute and sent deputies instead. China wanted to register its displeasure at Japan, and the two meetings were held in Tokyo.
Beijing had recently stirred up a nasty territorial dispute over the the Senkakus, a string of Japanese-controlled islets in the East China Sea. Beijing calls the barren islands the Diaoyus, and its claim is far weaker than Japan’s as a matter of international law. Unfortunately for China, Beijing acknowledged the islands belonged to Japan up until the beginning of the 1970s. There are official Chinese maps that show the Senkakus as Japan’s…… China throws tantrums because it feels it can get away with them. Now is the time to show the Chinese they cannot have it both ways. “They want to be seen as major players on the world stage, and yet they don’t turn up,” said the finance minister of a major economy to the Wall Street Journal. To Read More…..
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