China hopes that Japanese leaders will keep the promise to reflect on history and avoid activities that cause offense in countries that were victims of Japan’s wartime aggression, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan Wednesday.

The Fukuoka District Court in southern Japan ruled earlier Wednesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s controversial visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in downtown Tokyo was religious in nature and made in an official capacity, violating the division between religion and state in Japan’s Constitution. Koizumi says that he will continue to visit the shrine.

A group of 211 activists had filed a lawsuit demanding damages of 21.1 million yen (US$200,000) for psychological stress. While the court ruled that Koizumi’s four visits to the shrine since he took office in 2001 amounted to an execution of duties by the prime minister because he used a government chauffeured car and signed the shrine’s registry book with his official title, it rejected the damage claim.

The Yasukuni Shrine honors 14 Class-A war criminals from World War II along with the 2.5 million Japanese who have died in wars the mid-19th century.

Kong said that taking a proper attitude towards history concerns the political basis of Sino-Japanese relations and is an important condition for Japan to be trusted by Asia and the international community.

(Xinhua News Agency and china.org.cn April 8, 2005)