War shrine row now in Kuala Lumpur

China cancels meeting with Japan, South Korea in shrine row

KUALA LUMPUR : China said Thursday it had pulled out of a meeting of foreign ministers with Japan and South Korea, blaming Japan Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "arrogance" over a controversial war shrine.

"The leader of a certain country is still worshipping war criminals. Surely this is wrong," China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting.

"For an important leader of an important country to be so arrogantly and blatantly hurting the feelings of the people of other Asian countries, what sort of behaviour is this?"

"Can one accept this? Nobody can. This mistake should be corrected," he said, when asked why the meeting had been cancelled.

A Japanese government official confirmed that the lunch meeting scheduled for Thursday had been called off. "We have heard that China has pulled out. Because China holds the chairmanship of the trilateral forum, there will be no meeting of the three nations this time," he told AFP.

"There's no way we can hold it without China."

China on Sunday also called off a customary meeting of the leaders of the three countries due to be held here next week on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. China and South Korea have been repeatedly angered by Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo, which honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted war criminals.

China and South Korea, which were invaded and occupied by Japan in the 20th century, see the 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 October 17. He says he goes to the shrine to mourn Japan's dead and recommit the nation to pacifism. - AFP /ct