Asia-Pacific

Koizumi visits war criminals-honoring shrine

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-08-15 15:29

China strongly requests the Japanese government and leaders to follow the historical trend, remove political barriers and push Sino-Japanese relations return to the normal development track at an early date, Li said.

He stressed there are soaring voices from the international community and within Japan itself opposing Koizumi's shrine visit, which has demonstrated that his act is "unpopular".

To remove political barriers and push bilateral ties back to the normal development track at an early date is the right way that meet the common aspiration of the two peoples and the fundamental interests of the two countries, he said.

Meanwhile, person in charge of China-Japan Friendship Association issued a written statement Tuesday to oppose Koizumi's shrine visit.

"His act has severely hurt the feelings of people in China and other Asian countries, which were victimized by Japanese militarists, and undermined the political foundation of China-Japan relations," the statement says.

"We express our outmost indignation and strong protest over his wrong deeds," it says.

As everybody knows, the statement says, Yasukuni Shrine is the ideological prop and a tool of the Japanese militarists when launching aggression before the WWII.

It still honors 14 class-A war criminals including Hideki Tojo, whose hands were stained with the blood of the people in China and other victim countries, it says.

"Koizumi's doing resurrects Japan's wartime militarism, challenges the international justice and tramples the conscience of human beings," the statement says.

The development of Sino-Japanese relations conforms to the fundamental interests of the two countries and two peoples, it says.

"We are ready to join hands with Japanese personages from all walks of life, and make concerted efforts to remove obstacles in bilateral ties and promote friendly exchanges between the two peoples," the statement says.

Koizumi visited the shrine for five consecutive years since he took office in April 2001. But Tuesday's visit was the first he had paid on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement, strongly protesting Koizumi's visit again to the Yasukuni Shrine.

More than 30 Chinese people gathered outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing Tuesday morning, protesting against Koizumi's shrine visit.

The protest activity lasted about 20 minutes.

In Nanjing, capital of eastern China's Jiangsu Province, three Japanese civil groups protested Koizumi's visit again to the war criminals-honoring Yasukuni Shrine Tuesday morning.

At least 300,000 Chinese, not only disarmed soldiers but also civilian victims, were massacred by Japanese aggressor troops in the six-week holocaust in 1937.

She Ziqing, a 74-year-old survivor of the holocaust, was very angry when he heard Koizumi's repeated visit to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine.

"How can he feel no regret for the brutal deeds of the wartime Japanese militarists?" he said.

In Hangzhou, capital of China's Zhejiang Province, survivors of Japan's germ warfare in China were "indignant" over Koizumi's move.

Yang Dafang, whose father died in the germ warfare in 1940, said Koizumi's consecutive visits to the shrine not only hurt the feelings of the Chinese victims and their relatives, but also undermined the friendly relations between the two peoples.

During the war, the Japanese aggressive army's Unit 731 developed many biological weapons using plague, anthrax and other bacteria, and conducted related human experiments, causing deaths of many Chinese people.

In Japan, Koizumi's shrine visit also drew protests from opposition and coalition parties, politicians, civil groups as well as peaceloving people.

Japan's three opposition parties criticized Koizumi's visit. Yukio Hatoyama, secretary general of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan said that "the visit was an absurd act which could not be more irresponsible."

Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii said in a statement that Koizumi's action "exposed his irresponsibility regarding the country's foreign affairs," and the party lodges "a strong protest" toward his action.

Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party said in a press conference that the premier's visit was a mistake. "August 15 should be a day when we share a pledge of no more war. But (the premier) is trying to change the nature of the anniversary into a day of justifying sacrifice to state," she said.