Japan's ambassador-designate to China, Shinichi Nishimiya, died on Sunday in a Tokyo hospital, the Foreign Ministry said, three days after he was found unconscious on a Tokyo street. Doctors were looking into the cause of death, ministry official Takashi Ariyoshi said in a statement, but no other details were available. Nishimiya, 60, was found unconscious on a street near his home on his way to work.
Nishimiya was to have left in mid-October to take over from Uichiro Niwa as Japan's top envoy in Beijing.
While coincidental, Nishimiya's death came as tensions flared up between Japan and China over a disputed group of islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries. Anti-Japan protests flared in cities across China for a second day on Sunday, with police using tear gas and water cannon to drive back thousands of protesters in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong.