Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura yesterday called China's criticism of visits to a war shrine "absurd" and defended a controversial history textbook, accusing Beijing of ignoring Tokyo's pacifist record as a donor.
China has said relations were at a three-decade low due to an annual pilgrimage by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni shrine, which honors 2.46 million Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted war criminals.
"As soon as he visited the Yasukuni shrine, China said Japan was turning to militarism and we were not peaceful. This is absurd," Machimura said.
"We gave them aid, even by issuing deficit-covering bonds. At least in the 1990s, we were the world's biggest provider of aid" to China.
"I can say this proudly," Machimura told a foreign ministry meeting on foreign aid.
Koizumi has visited the Yasukuni shrine each year since he took office in 2001, with his last visit on January 1 last year.
He has indicated he will go again this year despite criticism from China and South Korea, and also appeals by former prime ministers concerned about Japan's diplomatic isolation.
In April sometimes violent protests erupted in China, which accuses Japan of not atoning for its past after Tokyo approved a history textbook written by self-described nationalists who believe Japan is too apologetic about its wartime record.
But Machimura defended the book by the Fusosha publisher, saying that "leftist Japanese scholars and journalists" had taken the issue out of proportion.
"If you read the textbooks you know," Machimura said. "Obviously there is no textbook that praises militarism and colonialism."
"The teachers' union would not adopt a textbook unless it has leftist-slanted passages," Machimura told a luncheon hosted by Jiji Press.
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