JCP Shii talks with China's Foreign Ministry official

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo held talks with Cheng Yonghua, deputy director of the Department of Asian Affairs, Foreign Ministry of China, in the Diet Building on June 13. Both exchanged views on some recent problems arising between the two countries.

Referring to Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro's remarks that he will make an official visit to Yasukuni Shrine and the history textbook issue, Cheng said that Japan-China relations are now in the most complicated situation since diplomatic relations were normalized.

Such moves in Japan distorting history of the war of aggression by Japanese militarism against China are disturbing the Chinese people, Cheng said.

Commenting on Koizumi's hawkish remarks openly calling for a constitutional revision, JCP Shii said that the prime minister, asserting that his visit is only to "pay tribute" to the war dead, wants to override at one stroke past Diet agreements on ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine. This is very dangerous, Shii said.

On the history textbook compiled by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform for junior high schools, Shii stated that 'partial amendments' will not help solve the matter at all. What must be corrected is the basis of the textbook, which legitimatizes Japan's war of aggression and its colonization policy. The JCP demands that the government withdraw its decision in the screening which approved the textbook, he said.

The textbook question originally concerns what Japan's next generation will learn, but the textbook only distorts their minds, Shii said.

Warning of the dangerous nature of the Koizumi cabinet's policy of allowing Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense with the U.S., Shii said that it is directed to enable Japan to again invade foreign countries.

Quoting a phrase from a cenotaph in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park as saying, "Please rest in peace, because we shall never let the mistake be repeated," Cheng said, "There is no need now for the Japanese people to be ashamed of Japan's history of the war of aggression, but they must ensure their determination that they will never repeat the mistake by walking consistently on the road toward peace." (end)