Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Beijing Thursday
that China expresses deep regret and strong dissatisfaction with
former Japanese Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro's visit to Taiwan.
According to report, Mori has left Japan for Taiwan Thursday,
becoming the second former Japanese Prime Minister to visit Taiwan
after Fukuda Takeo.
China has time and again lodged serious representations with the
Japanese side and expressed firm opposition to Mori's visit, said
Liu.
Liu reiterated that the Taiwan issue is a major principled
problem concerning China's sovereignty and territorial integrity so
China firmly opposes Japan to have official relations or relations
with political feature in any form with Taiwan.
China seriously demands Japan to honor its words with actual
deeds by observing the principles set forth in the China-Japan
Joint Statement and other two major political documents and the
commitments Japan made on Taiwan issue, he said.
He urged the Japanese side to make effective measures
immediately and wipe out negative political effect for safeguarding
the
China-Japan relations.
Speaking of the Chinese victims of Japan's abandoned chemical
weapons in Qiqihar, Liu said that the victims will receive
compensation of 300 million yen from the Japanese government in a
few days.
He said the Chinese government would continue to urge the Japanese
government to speed up destroying the lethal and
environmentally-threatening chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese
invaders during World War II, in line with the agreements reached
by the two governments and relevant international treaties.
A toxic gas leak killed one person and injured 43 others after
barrels of mustard gas were dug up at a construction site in
Qiqihar, in northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province, on August 4.
(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2003)