Ex-Japanese ambassador Shingo Yamagami ‘called in’ to Penny Wong’s office over China remarks

Shingo Yamagami claims he was summoned to Penny Wong’s office to be cautioned over public criticism of China even before Labor was elected in 2022 and she became the foreign minister.

Former Japanese ambassador to Australia Shingo Yamagami. Picture: NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Former Japanese ambassador to Australia, Shingo Yamagami, has revealed he was “called in” to Penny Wong’s office to be cautioned over public criticism of China even before Labor was elected in 2022 and she became the foreign minister.

Describing the summons to an ambassador to be cautioned by “a heavyweight MP of the Labor left” who was not even in government as “extraordinary and unacceptable”, Mr Yamagami said it was not clear whether Senator Wong was speaking on behalf of the ALP or just expressing her own views.

The then ambassador said he was told in 2021 to come to the parliamentary office “promptly”, where it was revealed he had to be cautioned because his “remarks were being used politically”.

“In a plain language, it was meant to be that since my remarks are so controversial that I must shut up my mouth,” Mr Yamagami has written in a book in Japan.

“The choice of the word ‘caution’ smacked of lecturing. As a general protocol of diplomacy, it was extraordinary and unacceptable for any ambassador representing his country to nod to such a message from somebody who is not even representing her country.”

The summons followed a report in The Australian Financial Review calling for a unified policy on China based on Mr Yamagami’s public support for “policy co-ordination and harmonisation” between Australia and Japan on China policy.

Penny Wong. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Mr Yamagami, a former head of Japan’s intelligence service, was an outspoken ambassador who pushed for a strong line from both Australia and Japan on containing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and over trade sanctions.

A spokesperson for Senator Wong said she had “always understood the importance of deep bipartisan support” for ­Australia’s relationship with Japan. “This was her approach to engaging with Japan in opposition, as it is today,” the spokesperson said.

Government sources said on Tuesday night there was no “prompt” meeting demanded with the then ambassador but did not deny the content as Mr Yamagami described.

Coalition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham said on Tuesday: “This sounds like an extraordinary intervention for a shadow minister to make regarding the official representative of one of Australia’s closest strategic partners.

“This reported conduct as shadow minister will only fuel the significant speculation surrounding any subsequent interventions by Penny Wong, after she became foreign minister, to undermine ambassador Yamagami’s place in Australia.”

The then trade minister, Dan Tehan, said on Tuesday: “This was an incredibly important time in our relationship with Japan. We were working very closely with Japan to combat the trade sanctions that had been unfairly placed on us by China. The then Japanese ambassador was a very important interlocutor at this time, so if such an intervention took place, a very serious question needs to be asked as to why?”

Two weeks ago in a speech during a visit to Melbourne, Mr Yamagami, who returned to Japan after the 2020 election and no longer works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Australia and Japan had to be careful not to be obsessed with “efforts not to displease their Chinese counterparts”.

“If they are not careful, Beijing will exploit this excessive enthusiasm for good relations, as it has in the past,” Mr Yamagami said as warned that the Japanese and Australian leaders should not be “weak and meek”.

In his book Combating China’s Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, published in Japan, Mr ­Yamagami said he wanted to ­reveal some of the turbulent events ­that occurred at the time.

He said a meeting with the Labor leadership group before the 2022 ­election with Anthony Albanese and future defence minister Richard Marles had gone extremely well but Senator Wong had not attended the briefing.