JAKARTA, April 23: Chinese President Hu Jintao said Saturday that Beijing would maintain friendly ties with Tokyo despite outstanding grievances after holding talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi aimed at salvaging relations.
The meeting between the Chinese and Japanese leaders in Jakarta came the day after Mr Koizumi made Japan’s most public apology in a decade for the wartime suffering it had caused Asian nations.
Mr Koizumi later described the meeting as “very good” and said he had asked Mr Hu to take measures to protect Japanese diplomatic interests and private companies in Chinese cities from demonstrations.
“Despite the current difficulties between China and Japan, China’s policy of safeguarding and developing friendly cooperation between China and Japan remains unchanged,” Mr Hu said after hastily arranged talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Africa summit.
“Recently Japan has broken its own commitment on historical issues and the Taiwan issue, deeply hurting the feelings of the Chinese and Asian people,” he said.
“The strong reaction from Chinese and Asian people is something that Japan should reflect deeply upon.”
Mr Hu did not say to which historical issues he was referring, but China and Japan have been locked for weeks in a bitter row sparked by Tokyo’s approval of a history textbook Beijing says glosses over its wartime atrocities.
Tensions over the textbook have boiled over onto the streets of several Chinese cities this month with thousands turning out at weekend rallies shouting anti-Japanese slogans and angrily denouncing Japan’s war record.
Protesters also expressed violent opposition to Tokyo’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and anger at Mr Koizumi’s visits to a controversial shrine for Japan’s war dead.
After the meeting, Mr Koizumi confirmed that Mr Hu had raised the thorny issue of the Yasukuni shrine — which venerates 2.5 million war dead, including seven World War II figures hanged for war crimes — but said they had agreed not to discuss the matter in detail.
When asked if he planned to rethink his visits, Mr Koizumi said he would “make a judgment appropriately” but added there was no change in his policy for the time being.
Since taking office in April 2001, the prime minister has never missed the annual pilgrimage to the shrine, which draws some five million visitors a year.
It is widely seen in the rest of Asia as a symbol of Japan’s militarism and has provoked strong protests in neighbouring nations including China, Taiwan and the two Koreas.
More than 160 Japanese politicians and lawmakers, including a member of Mr Koizumi’s cabinet, visited the shrine on Friday, sparking an angry reaction from Beijing.
COUNTER PROTEST: About 250 people rallied in downtown Tokyo on Saturday in a counter protest at the anti-Japanese demonstrations which have swept across China.
They peacefully marched through the streets of Shinjuku where there is a large community of Chinese, Koreans and other Asians, chanting that the Chinese government should apologize for the demonstrations in China and stop anti-Japan education. —AFP
