China lectures Koizumi over Japan war shrine visits

China lectured Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday over his visits to a war shrine and told Tokyo to stop creating new trouble over the suicide of a Japanese diplomat in Shanghai almost two years ago.

But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang also sounded a positive note, saying Japan has agreed to China's long-standing offer to jointly explore for gas in disputed areas of the East China Sea. Beijing and Tokyo, who have held three rounds of talks, have yet to decide the amount of investment and how profits would be split, Mr Qin told reporters. He gave no details.

On Wednesday a tearful Koizumi had rejected criticism of his visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine by China and South Korea, where bitter memories of Japan's military aggression run deep.

Mr Koizumi said he made the pilgrimages to honour the war dead and pray for peace. He said the feud should not drive a diplomatic wedge between Japan and its neighbours and added he was committed to developing friendly ties with Beijing and Seoul.

"(But) he cannot pretend nothing has happened when he has done the wrong thing, hurt the feelings of peoples of other countries and sabotaged the political basis of bilateral relations," China's Qin said without mentioning Mr Koizumi by name.

China and Japan should strengthen exchanges and cooperation, Mr Qin said, but a good political atmosphere and conditions were needed, an apparent reference to an end to Mr Koizumi's shrine visits.

Sino-Japanese ties have chilled markedly since Mr Koizumi took office in 2001 and began visits to Yasukuni shrine, where convicted war criminals are venerated along with Japan's 2.5 million war dead.

Many in China and South Korea see the shrine as a symbol of Tokyo's past militarism.

Japan colonised the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945 and occupied parts of China from 1931 to 1945.

Analysts have said Mr Koizumi's rejection of demands to stop visiting Yasukuni strikes a chord with many Japanese who resent China's military rise and are suspicious of its economic growth.

The Yasukuni pilgrimages also infuriate Seoul. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun called off a trip to Japan for a bilateral summit that had been expected late last year.