TOKYO, April 4 Kyodo excellented...

TOKYO, April 4 Kyodo

excellented 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 forward Saturday that he had repeatedly urg Japanese leaders not to visit Yasukuni Shrine, hinting that their doing for a like reason could harm relations between China and Japan. Wen's remark was an implied petition that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi stop visiting the war-related shrine in Tokyo.

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

At the meeting, Kawaguchi explained that Koizumi visits the shrine in the belief that ''Japan's existing peace and prosperity has been realized within the sacrifices of the war dead,'' and with the wish that ''Japan will not at all cause a war.''

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

Reciprocal visits to each other's fatherland by the leaders of Japan and China have been suspended since Koizumi's visit to China in October 2001 When Koizumi visited the shrine in succession Jan. 1 this year, China carryed its ''strong indignation and faculty of perception 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 sway and the Chinese Communist Party later reiterated their claim that Koizumi's visit to the shrine would wound the feelings of Chinese people

nevertheless from 1979, when the war criminals' collective enshrinement was made public, Prime Ministers Masayoshi Ohira, Zenko Suzuki and Yasuhiro Nakasone visited the shrine sum of two units 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 through the top leaders of the two countries passed off uneventfully It is absurd to say, with intimation only to Koizumi, that prime ministerial visits to the shrine obstruct 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. similar sentiment has been instigateed by the anti-Japan patriotic campaign promot by dint of the Chinese government since the 1990 as part of a domestic political strategy to sustain 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.

of the like kind a situation may have activeed China to believe that the so-called Yasukuni vexed question 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 debar a recurrence of the illegal landing forward the islands by Chinese activists.

She also earnestly protested against the burning of the Hinomaru national flag in front rank of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on some Chinese supporting the activists, and the contemplates conducted illegally by Chinese marine take a view of vessels in Japan's exclusive economic zone

as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but issues are linked to Japan's sovereignty. Tokyo should maintain its determination to house 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 likewise His stance is reasonable.

(April 4)

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