Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Relations between the Asian powers have been soured by Koizumi's visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine.
The trips have prevented state visits by either leader to the other's country for the past three years.
Hu said "in very explicit terms that the crux of the problem is that Japanese government leaders pay homage to the Yasukuni Shrine," according to Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan (
The Japanese and Chinese leaders met after a two-day summit of APEC leaders in the Chilean capital of Santiago.
"He said that Japanese leaders should seek a proper solution to this matter by taking history as a mirror and looking into the future."
Hu particularly called on Koizumi to suspend his visit to the shrine next year "as we will have a sensitive year, which marks the 60th anniversary of the victory of anti-fascism."
Koizumi replied he would "sincerely" receive Hu's remarks but stopped short of mentioning any possibility of suspending his pilgrimage next year.
"I visit there in order to honor those who lost their lives against their will," Koizumi explained.
The heated debate on the war history extended the length of talks to over an hour from an originally scheduled 30 minutes.
China, occupied by Japan before and during World War II, has voiced outrage over Koizumi's regular pilgrimages to the shrine, which honors the Japanese war dead including convicted war criminals.
Japanese atrocities serve as nationalistic fodder in Chinese state propaganda. Japanese footballers were loudly booed and jeered in China this summer when they played and ultimately won the Asian Cup.
In a bid to turn the tables, Koizumi raised with Hu the matter of a Chinese nuclear submarine's intrusion into Japanese waters this month, which put a new strain on the Asian powers' relations.
"It is important to prevent any recurrence of such an incident in the future," Koizumi told Hu, according to a Japanese government official.
But Hu made no reply over the intrusion, which involved a two-day chase on the high seas near gas fields disputed between China and Japan in the East China Sea.
A Chinese spokesman, declining to elaborate, said: "The submarine issue was already appropriately resolved through the foreign ministries."
Japanese officials last week said China had apologized for the intrusion of the nuclear submarine, which Beijing blamed on a technical error. Japan is also irked by a Chinese sea-bed research project in what Tokyo considers its exclusive economic zone there.
"It is important for us to take apt measures on natural resource development," Koizumi said, adding that the two countries should not "turn the East China Sea to a conflicting sea."
A sense of political self-confidence and nationalism is growing in both countries despite close trade relations.
Japanese business leaders have pressed Koizumi to smooth over relations with China, to which Japan's exports surged 24.1 percent to ?3.8 trillion (US$37 billion) for the six months to June.
During the China-Japan summit, Hu and Koizumi at least agreed to urge North Korea to buckle on negotiations for an end to a crisis over its nuclear weapons program, often described as a major threat to Asian security.
"The issue should be solved peacefully though dialogue," Hu said, pledging to continue persuading North Korea to return to stalled multilateral talks over the crisis. Beijing has traditionally friendly ties with Pyongyang.
Three rounds of multilateral talks, seeking to urge North Korea to take aid and security guarantees in return for mothballing the nuclear program, have taken place since the stand-off erupted in October 2002.
North Korea boycotted a fourth round of talks in September.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in