U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has started a four-day trip to China. Expectations on both sides remain modest, but the trip is getting a lot of publicity.
Yet, there is another diplomatic visit thatʻs underway that is not getting as much attention in this country, but shows another side of Chinese diplomacy.
The governor of Japan’s Okinawa prefecture is in the midst of a week-long visit to China.
He's part of an 80-person business and trade delegation that’s led by former Foreign Minister and one-time House Speaker Yohei Kono.
Kono is 86 years old and has been out of political office for nearly 14 years.
He now heads an organization that encourages business ties between Japan and China.
But while Kono is a former government official, Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki is very much in power, having been in that office for nearly five years.
Tamaki is an outspoken critic of the concentration of U.S. military forces in Japan.
More than 70% of all U.S. military facilities in Japan are located on Okinawa.
It's also close to Taiwan — one part of the prefecture is less than 70 miles away.
Tamaki’s visit is getting a lot of coverage in the Chinese media, especially anything that fits Beijing’s political agenda.
The Chinese Communist Party paper the “Global Times” ran an extended interview with Tamaki earlier this week, stressing what it called “his concerns about the Japanese government’s efforts to strengthen its military defense capabilities.”
