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FM: Japan needs to learn from Germany
(AFP/China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-15 14:47
BUSAN, South Korea - Chinese foreign minister once again condemned Japanese
leaders for worshipping war criminals and urged Tokyo to learn from Germany's
rejection of Adolf Hitler and stop upsetting its Asian neighours, the AFP has
reported.
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (R)
shakes hands with his South Korean counterpart Ban Ki-moon at the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Busan November 15, 2005.
[Xinhua] |
Raising the stakes in the row over
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the notorious Yasukuni war
shrine, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said in Busan Tuesday that Japan must show
more remorse for wartime atrocities.
"If a German leader went and
worshipped Hitler, worshipped the Nazis, how would the European people look at
this? Would this hurt their feelings? You should think about this carefully," Li
told reporters.
"Yet Japanese leaders are worshipping these war criminals
that harmed so many Chinese people. What are they thinking? Are they even
thinking that they are hurting the feelings of so many people of
Asia?"
Li was speaking after talks at the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum with South Korean Foreign
Minister Ban Ki-Moon during which both countries condemned the shrine
visits.
A senior ROK Foreign Ministry official told reporters Ban agreed with Li that
the shrine visits should stop.
Ban told Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso in a meeting on Monday that
Japanese politicians should halt their visits to Yasukuni.
Meanwhile, Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wang Yi said Koizumi's repeated visits
to the shrine are a "knotty issue" in Sino-Japanese relations.
"Only if Japan unties this knot can it expect Sino-Japanese relations to
improve, and exchanges of official visits by state leaders be possible," he
wrote in a signed article published on Monday in Japan Business News.
Less than a month
before this week's meetings, Koizumi made his fifth visit to the Yasukuni shrine
since taking office. The war shrine honours 2.5 million war dead including 14
top war criminals from World War II.
Koizumi insists his visits to the
shrine are to commemorate the dead, but many Asian countries see them as proof
Japan has not come to terms with its past aggression.
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