Japan Shrine Plan Fuels Feud With China

[deez nuts]

Japan Shrine Plan Fuels Feud With China

1 hour, 9 minutes ago World - AP Asia

By NATALIE PEARSON, Associated Press Writer

TOKYO - Inflaming already tense relations with China, Japanese lawmakers said Tuesday they plan to visit a shrine that critics say glorifies Japan's militarist past, and a Tokyo court ruled against Chinese victims of wartime atrocities.


Such developments would ordinarily infuriate the Chinese, but in the current atmosphere they could be explosive.


Sometimes violent anti-Japanese demonstrations involving tens of thousands of protesters have erupted in several Chinese cities in recent weeks over a government-approved Japanese textbook that critics say whitewashes the country's past militarism.


The protesters, who also oppose Tokyo's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, smashed windows of Japan's diplomatic missions in Beijing and Shanghai and damaged Japanese restaurants and cars.


China has refused to apologize or pay compensation, saying Japan sparked the protests by offending the Chinese people.


The textbooks approved earlier this month condense or omit references in earlier volumes to the Japanese military's germ warfare and sex slavery of Asian women. They only briefly mention the Nanjing Massacre of 1937, when Japanese soldiers killed tens of thousands of Chinese civilians.


U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao to meet this weekend in Jakarta, Indonesia, where all three will be attending the Asia-Africa summit.


"They have lots of relationship on all fronts — political, economic and social — and I hope those important aspects of their relationship will encourage them to resolve their differences," Annan said Monday.


But Japan showed no sign of backing off.


Nationalist lawmakers, headed by a former defense minister, announced plans to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead, on Friday, an aide to lawmaker Yasu Kano said on condition of anonymity.


He said the visit was planned well in advance and had nothing to do with the anti-Japanese riots rocking China.


But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang noted that the dead honored at the Tokyo shrine include executed war criminals, whom he called the "planners and conspirators" of World War II.


"We hope the Japanese leaders could fully respect the people in the victimized countries in Asia, including the Chinese people," Qin said in Beijing. He called on Japanese leaders to "refrain from doing anything that might harm the feelings of Asian people."


Also Tuesday, the Tokyo High Court rejected demands to compensate Chinese victims of atrocities committed by Japan's military in the 1930s and '40s, including the use of biological weapons, which historians estimate killed as many as 250,000 people.


The ruling upheld a 1999 lower court ruling that international law barred foreign citizens from seeking compensation from the Japanese government for wartime actions.


"We hope the Japanese side will approach this issue in a responsible manner and handle this appropriately," Qin said, though he would not say what outcome China wants.


China's leaders also are alarmed at proposals to give Japan a permanent seat on an expanded U.N. Security Council. Such status, with power to veto U.N. actions, is now held by only China, the United States, Russia, Britain and France, and Beijing is reluctant to dilute its influence as the only Asian member of that elite.





The rhetoric and demonstrations have raised worries about the potential effect on the economic relationship between Asia's two biggest economies, which are linked by billions of dollars in trade and investment.

The benchmark Nikkei Stock Average plunged 3.8 percent Monday to end at its lowest point since Dec. 16, although share prices rebounded Tuesday on bargain-hunting, rising 1.2 percent to end at 11,065.86.

Japanese officials also warned that airlines had seen a major drop in travel to China. Japan Airlines said 5,500 travelers booked for China in April and May already had canceled.

Japan's Trade Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said he doubted China could be trusted as a law-abiding nation.

"It is only natural for anyone to offer an apology and compensation if he or she damages other people's property," he said Tuesday. "When there is no response despite our request, we cannot help but doubt (China's) reliability as a state governed by the law."

Amid the anger, however, were calls for calm.

Officials in Tokyo cautioned Japanese not to retaliate against Chinese organizations following signs of reprisals, including defacement of the Chinese ambassador's residence in Tokyo and pellets shot at a Chinese language school.

Security at Chinese diplomatic offices and other facilities linked to the communist nation have been put on high alert, officials said.

In a sudden shift, Chinese nationalist Web sites that have encouraged the anti-Japanese protests urged supporters Tuesday not to target Japanese citizens.

Veteran anti-Japanese activists have said they didn't want violence in the latest round of protests, and the statement appeared to reflect unease at the unrest and the possibility that it might prompt government action against them.

"We oppose the Japanese right-wingers and the politicians that support them, not the Japanese people," said a statement on the Web site, which earlier had publicized details of protest plans.

"Japanese people are our friends and brothers in arms," the statement said. The site's name refers to the date of the Sept. 19, 1931, start of Japan's invasion of China.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...as/china_japan

[ahsingjai]

Wow, talk about stupidity and stubbornness.

Inflaming already tense relations with China, Japanese lawmakers said Tuesday they plan to visit a shrine that critics say glorifies Japan's militarist past, and a Tokyo court ruled against Chinese victims of wartime atrocities.

Just fucken apologize and get it would be over with. Why add more oil to the fire by going.

[VV o n g B a]

Veteran anti-Japanese activists have said they didn't want violence in the latest round of protests, and the statement appeared to reflect unease at the unrest and the possibility that it might prompt government action against them.

"We oppose the Japanese right-wingers and the politicians that support them, not the Japanese people," said a statement on the Web site, which earlier had publicized details of protest plans.

"Japanese people are our friends and brothers in arms," the statement said. The site's name refers to the date of the Sept. 19, 1931, start of Japan's invasion of China.

at least there's a ray of hope here if this sentiment originated at the grass roots level. the situation seems to get worse every passing day. is this the perfect storm for china/japan relations?

[SunWuKong]

i'm really starting not to feel bad that the protests in China turned violent.

[yoMAMA]

japanese politicans, what a bunch of idiots!

on a good note, i thougth koizumi is not visiting the shrine this year?

[deez nuts]

Originally Posted by yoMAMA

on a good note, i thougth koizumi is not visiting the shrine this year?

it might conflict with his dance lessons with richard gere.

[yoMAMA]

Originally Posted by Chasiubao_Boy

it might conflict with his dance lessons with richard gere.

haha....

[yuuteya]

Originally Posted by SunWuKong

i'm really starting not to feel bad that the protests in China turned violent.

i guess i was wrong about you.
my mistake. im too optimistic.
good bye.

[hooligan]

Originally Posted by yuuteya

i guess i was wrong about you.
my mistake. im too optimistic.
good bye.

LOL. These threads and comments are getting just as old as IR dating threads. We set the standard at YW.

[SunWuKong]

Originally Posted by yuuteya

i guess i was wrong about you.
my mistake. im too optimistic.
good bye.

well, now is not exactly a good time to be allocating mining rights around Diaoyu Islands and planning visits to war shrines. it shows all the more that the Japanese government doesn't feel like it did anything wrong in the past.

plus, the Japanese government actually asked for an apology? it's like what a Chinese friend said - "they'd have to rip it from our cold dead hands."

[yuuteya]

Originally Posted by hooligan

LOL. These threads and comments are getting just as old as IR dating threads. We set the standard at YW.

yes in hindsight it is LOL isnt it... childrens fairy tale, black and white, good vs evil, devil people vs angel people. so amazing how so many people are so hynotized and taken easily by that shit. so you had better better to wake up yourself, or else youd be stuck in limbo forever.

to all those in limbo forever, good luck!

[robotic]

china and japan could be headed towards the situation in 1998 between pakistan and india and that's just the scariest thing to think about ;_;

[Banana]

Japan isn't even attempting to not make the situation worse. Rather, they seem to be going out of their way to piss people off and this reflects alot on their personalities.

True, it's only the politicians that seem to be in the wrong and not the Japanese people but I still blame the Japanese people from not doing anything about it by protesting their own government.

"Evil men reign when good men do nothing."

So, you know, I can blame the Japanese people themselves and I have a feeling that if Japan wasn't being bodyguarded by it's big brother known as the United States, it would have been taken over by China or one of the Koreas by now.

[Craig]

One of my former roommates previously made the statement that it's not the Japanese people that are evil, but it's the Japanese government. However, how many times have I heard the same argument about America. I'll give individual Japanese the benefit of the doubt. There are many people here in the USA that dislike the government, etc. but are not in enough power to effectively do anything also.

[yuuteya]

Originally Posted by Banana

"Evil men reign when good men do nothing."

nice, now please tell that to the chinese.

if Japan wasn't being bodyguarded by it's big brother known as the United States, it would have been taken over by China or one of the Koreas by now.

yes, finally, you realize. the real nationalistic-militaristic threat is Not Japan, that was nuked twice off the face of the earth in 1945, remember the history???

TODAY THE REAL POTENTIAL MILITARISTIC-NATIONALISTIC THREAT IS ACTUALLY CHINA