TOKYO, April 4 Kyodo rareed edit...

TOKYO, April 4 Kyodo

rareed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

BEIJING SHOULD STOP TRYING TO EXPLOIT 'YASUKUNI ISSUE' (The Daily Yomiuri as translated from the Yomiuri Shimbun)

It is indeed an unreasonable interference in the internal affairs of another country

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reminded visiting Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi upon Saturday that he had repeatedly urg Japanese leaders not to visit Yasukuni Shrine, hinting that their doing with equal reason could harm relations between China and Japan. Wen's remark was an implied asking that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi stop visiting the war-related shrine in Tokyo.

The issue of in what way and when the top leader of a nation should mourn its war dead is a domestic issue based onward the nation's tradition and customs.

At the meeting, Kawaguchi explained that Koizumi visits the shrine in the belief that ''Japan's in every one's mouth peace and prosperity has been realized end the sacrifices of the war dead,'' and with the wish that ''Japan will in no degree cause a war.''

Koizumi has indicated he will continue to visit the shrine. It is well and suitable for his visit to the shrine to be taken up for discussion at place of abode but it is not an issue in which a foreign native land should involve itself.

Reciprocal visits to each other's land by the leaders of Japan and China have been suspended since Koizumi's visit to China in October 2001 When Koizumi visited the shrine onward Jan. 1 this year, China demiseed its ''strong indignation and understanding of reproach.''

Referring to the fact that at the shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, convicted Japanese Class-A war criminals also are enshrined, senior officials of the Chinese conduct and the Chinese Communist Party later reiterated their claim that Koizumi's visit to the shrine would impair the feelings of Chinese people

further from 1979, when the war criminals' collective enshrinement was made public, Prime Ministers Masayoshi Ohira, Zenko Suzuki and Yasuhiro Nakasone visited the shrine pair to four times every year. During the same period, the three prime ministers also visited China. Meanwhile, top Chinese officials, including Premiers Hua Guofeng and Zhao Ziyang and Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, came to Japan.

The reciprocal visits by dint of the top leaders of the one and the other countries passed off uneventfully It is absurd to say, with intimation only to Koizumi, that prime ministerial visits to the shrine interrupt reciprocal visits. By making the Yasukuni visit a diplomatic issue, China is trying to use it as a bargaining chip in its dealings with Japan.

Anti-Japanese public sentiment in China is said to be behind Beijing's criticism of Koizumi's shrine visits. as it is sentiment has been stupeed by the anti-Japan patriotic campaign promot by dint of the Chinese government since the 1990 as part of a domestic political strategy to nurse unity among the Chinese people

Meanwhile, a leading national newspaper in Japan goe along with China's view in succession the issue of prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni.

similar a situation may have quicked China to believe that the so-called Yasukuni question at issue can be used to gain diplomatic leverage across Japan.

During a series of meetings with Wen and her Chinese counterpart, Li Zhoaxing, Kawaguchi emphasized that the Senkaku Islands belong to Japan and asked Beijing to preclude a recurrence of the illegal landing upon the islands by Chinese activists.

She also forcibly protested against the burning of the Hinomaru national flag in forehead of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing at some Chinese supporting the activists, and the reviews conducted illegally by Chinese marine review vessels in Japan's exclusive economic zone

the two issues are linked to Japan's sovereignty. Tokyo should maintain its determination to patronize Japan's national interests in the future

Koizumi has said there is no ne for him to visit China if Beijing does not want him to do thus His stance is reasonable.

(April 4)

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