TOKYO, Dec 21: Japan issued tourist visas on Tuesday to Taiwan's outspoken former president Lee Teng-hui and his family, defying a warning from China that the move would further damage tense Sino-Japanese relations.

The Japanese government said it considered Mr Lee, who left office in 2000, to be a private citizen. It told journalists and officials to stay away from him on his tour starting next week of historic sites in southern Japan.

But China called the issuance of the visa in Taipei a "very significant incident" and was furious that Japan ignored its warnings not to allow the visit. "The Japanese government acted in disregard of the Chinese government's solemn representation and firm opposition and stubbornly allowed Lee Teng-hui to go to Japan to carry out activities to split the country," foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in Beijing.

"The Chinese government expresses strong dissatisfaction and again demands the Japanese side rectify this wrong." Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said he would not back down and stop the visit by the 81-year-old former Taiwanese leader, who studied in Japan in his youth.

"He is coming as a private citizen wanting to travel in Japan. There is no reason to deny the request (for visas). He went to a Japanese university," Mr Koizumi told reporters.

The Interchange Association, which represents Japan in Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic ties, issued Mr Lee and his family with 15-day visas "for sightseeing", a spokeswoman for the Japanese foreign ministry said.

But the Chinese spokesman said the "political motivations" of Mr Lee's visit was "very obvious". "His political motive is to find backing and create overseas conditions for his activities to split the country," Mr Liu said.

On Monday 23 protesters rallied outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing to protest Tokyo's "rude" interference in China's internal affairs, in what appeared to be a carefully managed demonstration.

Relations between the Asian powers have been damaged in recent weeks by the incursion of a Chinese submarine into Japanese waters and Japan's listing of China as a potential threat in its updated defence guidelines.

The Japanese government has taken the unusual step of asking journalists not to follow Mr Lee during his visit. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said on Tuesday the government would also ask leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and "others who have deep ties with Taiwan" to refrain from meeting Mr Lee.

The ex-president is expected to arrive in the central city of Nagoya on Dec 27 and tour the ancient cities of Kanazawa and Kyoto before returning home on Jan 2. Taiwan's foreign ministry welcomed the decision to grant visas. And a spokesman for the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union called the former president's trip "a breakthrough" against China's political blockade.

Mr Lee last came to Japan in April 2001 for medical treatment to follow up on surgery he had undergone a year earlier in Taipei. That trip prompted Beijing to cancel a visit to Japan by its then-legislative chairman Li Peng.

Tokyo switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1972 and has since barred official contacts with Taiwan, a position it says is unchanged by the granting of a visa to Mr Lee.

Lee was president of Taiwan from 1988 to 2000. His "private visit" in 1995 to the United States, where he earned his doctorate, prompted China to hold military manoeuvres near Taiwan. -AFP