Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told his Japanese counterpart Makiko Tanaka Tuesday that Tokyo must end a bitter dispute over Japan's war history to avoid damaging ties between the Asian powers.
Mr Tang told Ms Tanaka that Tokyo must "take concrete steps to sincerely and properly settle outstanding problems" over history textbooks and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's plan to visit a controversial war shrine next month.
Mr Tang, emerging after an hour of talks with Ms Tanaka on the sidelines of a regional conference in Hanoi, said: "I clearly urged them to give up (plans to pay homage at Yasukuni Shrine)."
A Japanese official quoted him as telling Ms Tanaka: "If Prime Minister Koizumi visits Yasukuni Shrine, it will undoubtedly spark strong anger among the people of China."
In reply, Ms Tanaka was quoted by the Japanese official as saying: "We still have time until August 15 and I will convey what China has to say to the Prime Minister."
But Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi once said such a visit is only natural, as a Japanese citizen and the prime minister of Japan, Kyodo news agency quoted Koizumi as saying.
The question of visits to Yasukuni by Japanese prime ministers and cabinet members has been an irritant in Tokyo's ties with its Asian neighbours since then-Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone made an official visit there in 1985.
The two ministers met on the sidelines of meetings in Hanoi of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations plus regional powers, including South Korea and the United States.
Since taking office in late April, Koizumi has repeatedly said he will visit Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two.
Yasukuni Shrine commemorates Japan's 2.6 million war dead since the 19th century, including wartime premier General Hideki Tojo and other military leaders who were convicted and hanged as war criminals for their roles in Japan's invasion of Asian neighbours in the 1930s and 1940s.
Koizumi's shrine homage plans, and a new Japanese school textbook which ignores Tokyo's wartime brutality, have dogged Japanese relations with China and South Korea all year.
China, South Korea and other Asian nations have emphatically criticised the textbook, to be used in Japanese classrooms next year, for attempting to justify Japan's invasion of much of Asia in the first half of the 20th century.
Japan further angered South Korea and China earlier this month when it rejected calls for major changes to the text.
Tang and South Korean counterpart Han Seung-soo also discussed World War II issues at their bilateral talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting, Sun said.
"China and South Korea both suffered under Japanese imperialism and public opinion in both countries has been strongly dissatisfied and hurt by Japan's denial of history," he told reporters.
TRADE SPAT
The Tang-Tanaka meeting also touched on a smouldering bilateral trade dispute in which Japan's imposition of steep tariffs on Chinese farm imports was matched with punitive Chinese duties on Japanese high technology products.
"China does not want to see the issue further complicated and hopes Japan can settle these problems from a long-term point of view," Sun said.
"If Japan looks only at short-term benefits, its losses will be greater than its gains," he added.
Trade officials from the two countries met in Beijing early this month but failed to resolve the dispute over Japan's tariffs.
Sun said the foreign ministers had agreed to "take an attitude of dialogue and cooperation" toward resolving the trade spat, but would leave the specifics to trade negotiators.
(Chinadaily.com.cn 07/25/2001)
