China says economic aid cannot offset Japan's wartime past

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Tuesday Japan's economic assistance to other countries cannot offset the harm it caused to Asian countries in the past.

"Japan does not face up to history. It is trying to gloss over its past," Liu said in response to Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura's remarks on Monday.

Machimura called China's criticism of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, "outrageous" on Monday, and Japanese officials have complained China was ignoring Tokyo's economic assistance to developing countries.

The Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo honors 14 convicted Class-A war criminals who were responsible for heinous atrocities during World War II, among the war dead.

"Japanese leaders' worshiping at the Yasukuni Shrine constitutes a negation of Japan's history of aggression against other countries," said Liu. "What China and other Asian countries oppose are Japanese leaders' worshiping at the shrine and some Japanese officials' absurd and wrong viewpoints on history," he said.

Liu said that while it is good of Japan to offer development assistance, its "wartime past cannot be erased just because the country offers assistance to developing countries."

Source: Xinhua