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TOKYO: Japan warned against rushing to the conclusion that Chinese
dumplings behind a health scare here were intentionally poisoned
following allegations of politically motivated sabotage on Thursday.
A senior Chinese official on Wednesday said the
frozen dumplings, which sickened at least 10 people in Japan, may
have been poisoned by people opposed to friendly ties between the
two countries.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura
distanced Tokyo from the remark, saying the Chinese side was also
“yet to reach a firm conclusion.”
“It would be better not to specify the cause
when we have not completed a full investigation,” Machimura, the
top government spokesman, told a news conference.
Japan and China have been working since 2006 to
repair political relations that had hit rock bottom amid a row over
Tokyo’s past imperialism and a territorial dispute.
The suggestion of a political motive behind the
health scare was made by Wei Chuanzhong, vice-minister of the
General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and
Quarantine, to a Japanese government mission on Wednesday.
“We cannot deny the possibility that a small
group of discontented elements who do not wish for the development
of China-Japan friendship may have taken extreme measures,” he
said.
China, Japan’s largest trading partner and its
second biggest supplier of imported food, has been hit by a string
of scandals over its products, raising fears for the massive
manufacturing industry behind its soaring growth.
-- AFP
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