MATSUYAMA, Japan, Jan. 15 Kyodo A...

MATSUYAMA, Japan, Jan. 15 Kyodo

A top official of the Chinese Embassy in Japan abruptly canceled his scheduled attendance at a discourse meeting on Wednesday organized at the Japanese Foreign Ministry at Matsuyama University in Ehime Prefecture university officials said.

The Chinese Embassy notified the ministry Tuesday evening that Minister-Counselor Qiu Guohong's cancellation was owing to some urgent business, according to the officials.

''It is possible that this was a reaction to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to Yasukuni Shrine,'' said Noboru Miyawaki, an assistant professor at the university, in respect to Koizumi's visit to the controversial Shinto shrine earlier onward Tuesday.

Qiu was scheduled to speak at the meeting forward East Asian regional cooperation and Japan-China-South Korea relations.

The brace other speakers, Chihiro Atsumi, substitute director general of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and Minister-Counselor O Yong Hwan of the southern Korean Embassy in Japan, attended the meeting as scheduled.

Koizumi's visit to the war-linked shrine, which honors convicted Class-A war criminals along with Japanese war dead, sparked asserts from Beijing and Seoul

In Seoul southerly Korean President Kim Dae Jung canceled a Wednesday meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, following Koizumi's visit to the shrine.

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