It is not every day that the ambassador from a country with which New Zealand has one of its best relationships is hauled into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a stern ticking-off.
Yesterday's decision by Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully to summon the Japanese ambassador to the ministry so it could formally reiterate New Zealand's unhappiness with a Japanese whaling support vessel entering New Zealand's exclusive economic zone is towards the stronger end of diplomatic responses.
It is certainly a step up from last Friday's demand that the embassy's deputy head of mission go to the ministry to be told of New Zealand's displeasure.
Moreover, the Government is not ruling out even firmer action, such as summoning the ambassador to the Beehive for a face-to-face dressing-down from McCully himself should there be another such incident. That would place New Zealand's reaction to the incursion into its economic zone on a par with its response to French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in the mid-1990s.