The Foreign Ministry issued a statement yesterday condemning
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni
Shrine, a place where 14 WWII class-A war criminals are honored,
along with about two million other war dead.
Foreign Minister Li
Zhaoxing read the statement to Japan's ambassador to China,
Koreshige Anami, saying that Koizumi had again visited the shrine
despite strong opposition from China and other Asian countries and
their peoples.
Such a move "hurt the feelings and dignity" of those countries
and their peoples and "seriously undermined
Sino-Japanese relations," it said, adding that the government
and people expressed their strong indignation over the action.
It said that in recent years Chinese leaders have repeatedly
made clear their hope that Koizumi would? take the
overall?situation into account and not insist on having his
own way.
"This has revealed the political will and sincerity of the
Chinese government and people who attach importance to
Sino-Japanese relations," it said. "Prime Minister Koizumi must
shoulder all responsibility for the severe political consequences
resulting from his wrongdoing."
"The will of the people cannot be insulted," the statement
quoted a Chinese saying, adding that "anybody that goes against the
trend of the times will let down both ancestors and descendants,
and will finally 'lift a rock only to drop it on his own toes,'” it
said.
According to the statement, though the Japanese government and
its leaders have expressed solemn commitments towards historical
issues on many occasions, in recent years some leaders have time
and again severely hurt the Chinese people's feelings and imposed
obstacles to the normal development of relations.
This year marks the 60th
anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance Against
Japanese Aggression and World War Two, but Japanese right-wing
extremists go against the current of the world, publicly distorting
and negating history, it said.
In the 21st century, the statement said, Japan must show an
earnest, sincere and responsible attitude, implement the principles
of "learning from history and facing up to the future" by taking
convincing and concrete actions, co-exist peacefully with neighbors
and take a peaceful development path on this basis if it really
wants to gain trust from Asian neighbors and the international
community and play a positive role in international affairs.
(Xinhua News Agency October 18, 2005)