Noting that in disregard of the strong opposition from Japan's Asian neighbors, including China, and opposition from inside Japan itself, Koizumi visited the Shrine that has memorial tablets for class-A war criminals; Wang said that the Chinese government and the Chinese people feel strong indignation over the visit.

Wang said that the Yasukuni Shrine used to be the spiritual prop of the Japanese military's invasion of other countries before the Second World War, and now it still enshrines the memorial tablets to 14 class-A war criminals.

In the first half of the 20th century, it was the Japanese militarists represented by these class-A war criminals who launched the wars of aggression bringing unheard-of calamities on the people of Asian countries and making the Japanese people suffering a lot as well, Wang said.

When the war ended, Wang said, the Far-East International Military Tribunal brought the Japanese militarists to a righteous trial and Japan accepted the sentence, promising to pursue a peaceful development road from then on. As a result, the treatment of the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine has since become a touchstone for examining the attitude the Japanese government holds towards that period of history.

Wang stressed that China was the biggest victim of the Japanese militarism invasion war.

When China and Japan restored the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1972, Japan clearly indicated in the Joint Statement that it felt deeply sorry about the severe harm done to the Chinese people during World War II and expressed deep introspection, Wang noted.

When President Jiang Zemin visited Japan in 1998, the Japanese side admitted in earnest again its history of aggression against China, reiterated its attitude on introspecting and apologized to the Chinese people, through both the China-Japan Joint Declaration and official meetings attended by leaders of both sides.

On this basis, the two sides have reached the significant consensus of "learning from history and facing the future", Wang said.

However, the Prime Minister's visit to the Shrine violates the above-mentioned basic stance of the Japanese government, and again discredits Japan among the people in Asia and the world, including Chinese people, on the issue of history, Wang said.

Wang said that China takes notice of that Koizumi gave up his original plan to visit the Shrine at the sensitive time of August 15 and made remarks on historic issues, in which he admitted Japanese aggression and expressed introspection, but his actual practice contradicts and runs against what he said.

It must be pointed out that what the Japanese leader has done has damaged the political basis of the Sino-Japanese relations and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and people in other victimized Asian countries, and will inevitably affect the healthy development of future bilateral ties between China and Japan, Wang said.

He pointed out that the negative moves of the Japanese sides towards the issue of history in recent years, including the latest visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, have further isolated Japan from its Asian neighbors and the international community.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has repeatedly stated since he came into office that Japan would strengthen international coordination and develop friendly relationship with neighboring countries, Wang noted.

But how in the end Japan reflects those statements in its actual practice is worth pondering of both the Japanese government and people of insight, Wang said, adding that the people of the Asian countries will wait and see on the issue.

(People.com.cn 08/14/2001)