China's relations with Japan would remain at low ebb as long as Japanese leaders continued visiting a Tokyo shrine for war dead, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Sunday.

Demonstrators protest against Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo August 15, 2006. [Reuters]

State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan told the honorary leader of Japan's opposition Social Democratic Party, Doi Takako, that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Tuesday visit to the Yasukuni Shrine had "seriously affected the improvement of China-Japan relations", the Xinhua news agency reported.

Koizumi visited the Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

Koizumi's visit on the anniversary of his country's World War Two surrender drew swift condemnation from Beijing, Seoul and other regional capitals.

Tang said the deadlock of Sino-Japanese political relations lies in that the Japanese leaders insist to visit the Shrine which honors Japanese "class A" war criminals.

Koizumi's visit severely harms the feeling of the people victimized by Japanese militarist aggression and damages the political basis of Sino-Japanese relations, he said.

Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi (C) is led by a Shinto priest (R) as he   visits Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine August 15, 2006. [Reuters]

 

Koizumi visited the shrine every year since he took office as prime minister in 2001.

Tang said the Chinese side will continue to work for breaking the deadlock of Sino-Japanese relations.

Tang said the two countries should seek to put relations "back onto a normal development track". 

He said he hopes that the Japanese side can follow historical trends and the willing of the peoples of the two countries, remove political barriers and push Sino-Japanese relations, together with China, back onto a normal development track.

Tang said he highly appreciates Doi for her long-term work on improving Sino-Japanese friendship and hopes that she can make more efforts in this aspect.

Doi was former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Japan and also former speaker of the House of Representatives from 1993 to 1996. She visited China many times and Chinese former President Jiang Zemin and President Hu Jintao had met with her.

1

2