China-Japan dispute reignites

BEIJING - China is extremely dissatisfied with remarks repeatedly made by Japanese leaders on visiting a controversial war, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yu cancelled a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday and left a day early, prompting a diplomatic stir over a trip some had hoped would help repair frayed ties.

Sino-Japanese relations have sunk to their lowest level in decades amid a series of feuds, including one sparked by Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine for war dead, seen by Beijing as a symbol of Japan's past militarism.

Koizumi last visited the shrine in January 2004 and said last week he would make an "appropriate decision" on when to go again.

"To our regret, during Vice Premier Wu Yi's stay in Japan, Japanese leaders repeatedly made remarks on visiting the Yasukuni shrine that go against the efforts to improve Sino-Japanese relations," Xinhua quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan as saying. "China is extremely unsatisfied with it."

Kong said the Chinese government attached great importance to Sino-Japanese relations and had made unremitting efforts to develop bilateral relations. "Vice Premier Wu Yi's visit to Japan is the best demonstration of it."

China had earlier cited domestic commitments as the reason for calling off the meeting by Wu, Beijing's top-ranking woman and the most senior Chinese official to visit Japan since 2003.

But the cancellation -- a diplomatic rarity -- and the fact that Wu was going ahead with a visit to Mongolia on Tuesday clearly angered Japanese officials. One called on Beijing for a "clear explanation" of what could be taken as a diplomatic snub.

Anti-Japanese protests swept Chinese cities last month with demonstrators pelting Japanese missions and the ambassador's residence in Beijing with rocks and eggs and vandalising Japanese restaurants.

The protests were triggered by Tokyo's approval of a school textbook that critics say whitewashes its 1931-45 invasion and partial occupation of China and by its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

- REUTERS