'Should do more to de-escalate..': China fumes over Japan PM's surprise visit to Ukraine

China on Tuesday hit out at Japan after its Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a surprise visit to Ukraine and overshadowed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow, saying Tokyo should do more to de-escalate the situation rather than aggravating it.

Beijing was caught by surprise as Kishida, who was on an official visit to New Delhi from March 19-21, entered Poland from India using a secretly chartered plane instead of the standard government aircraft, Japanese TV channel NHK reported.

The chartered plane left Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at around 8 pm on Sunday, about three hours before a government plane carrying Kishida departed for India.

Also watch: Japan PM arrives in India: China, G20, Indo-Pacific, defence the agenda

After wrapping up his scheduled events in India, the prime minister secretly boarded the waiting plane in the early morning hours of Tuesday, the Japan Times daily quoted an NHK report.