Japan has been told it will lose a bid to build a high-speed rail link between Beijing and Shanghai because of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to a controversial war shrine, a report said yesterday.
Beijing's resentment would probably also cost Tokyo success in another bid -- to host the multi-billion dollar ITER experimental nuclear fusion project -- because China would back a rival French offer, the English-language version of the Asahi Shimbun reported, citing unnamed sources.
The message was conveyed by a senior Chinese official to Takenori Kanzaki, the head of the New Komei Party, Japan's junior ruling coalition partner, during a visit to Beijing earlier this month, the paper said.
Japan would have won the lucrative contracts "if it had not been for the Yasukuni issue," Liu Hongcai, the deputy head of the communist party's international liaison department told Kanzaki, according to the Asahi's sources.
Liu's reported reference was to Tokyo's Shinto Yasukuni Shrine, which is viewed as a symbol of Japan's militarism for honoring war dead including war criminals.
Koizumi paid his respects at the shrine on New Year's Day, his fourth pilgrimage since he took office in April 2001, provoking Chinese anger.
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Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique