Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi yesterday shrugged off China's cancellation of a customary meeting, saying he would not let his visits to a war shrine become a "diplomatic playing card."
"I am ready to talk any time. If they are postponing, that's not a problem," Koizumi told reporters.
China on Sunday called off a three-way meeting among the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean prime ministers in Kuala Lumpur this month.
The trilateral meeting has been held every year since 1999 on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit.
The move came amid furor in the two neighboring countries over Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni shrine, which honors 2.5 million Japanese war dead including 14 convicted war criminals.
"Yasukuni is no longer an effective diplomatic playing card. It is not going to be that, even if China and South Korea attempt to make it so," Koizumi said.
China and South Korea, which were invaded and occupied by Japan, see Yasukuni shrine as a symbol of Japan's militarist past.
Koizumi has defied protests and visited the Shinto sanctuary five times while in office, most recently on Oct. 17. He says he goes to the shrine to mourn Japan's dead and recommit the nation to pacifism.
China also ruled out any meeting between President Hu Jintao (
Summit host, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, met Koizumi but said it was only to show him courtesy as a guest and used the encounter to denounce his visits to the shrine.
Koizumi's Yasukuni visits are also domestically controversial with numerous lawsuits filed against his pilgrimage, mostly on the grounds that it violates the constitutional separation of religion and state.
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