Demonstrators in Tokyo protest Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni war shrine yesterday. The shrine commemorates Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.

Chian expressed anger yesterday over a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a Tokyo shrine that honors war criminals.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing summoned Japanese Ambassador Yuji Miyamoto and told him that Koizumi's decision to "obstinately" visit the shrine was a "serious political event that harmed the feelings of those countries victimized during the war of aggression and that damaged the political foundation of Sino-Japanese relations."

"On behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, I express strong indignation and severely condemn" the visit, he said.

Critics say the shrine, which honors Japan's war dead, including the class-A war criminals, glorifies Tokyo's militarism of the 1930s and '40s, when Japanese forces invaded much of East Asia at a cost of millions of lives.

Koizumi's visit fell on the anniversary of Tokyo's August 15, 1945, World War II surrender.

More than 30 Chinese people gathered outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing yesterday morning to protest Koizumi's shrine visit.

In Nanjing, capital of eastern China's Jiangsu Province, three Japanese groups raised their voices against the visit.

At least 300,000 Chinese were massacred by Japanese troops in the city in 1937.

She Ziqing, a 74-year-old survivor of the massacre, was angry when he heard about Koizumi's shrine trip.

"How can he feel no regret for the brutal deeds of the wartime Japanese?" he said.

China's foreign minister called on Japan's leaders "to remove political barriers and push Sino-Japanese ties back to the normal development track at an early date."

Li told Miyamoto that Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine "challenge international justice" and "trample the conscience of mankind."

The class-A war criminals honored at the shrine planned and directed Japan's military aggression and were chiefly responsible for "the great calamity" imposed on Asia and the world, Li said.

Koizumi insisted on visiting the shrine despite protests from the international community, Japan's Asian neighbors and Japanese people.

Noting that China was the biggest victim of Japanese aggression, Li said, "To correctly understand and treat that part of history constituted the political basis for the resumption and development of the China-Japan relations after the war, and the important precondition for the two countries to face up to the future."

Li said the Chinese government and people attach great importance to the development of closer cooperation between the two countries.

"We will continue to join hands with the Japanese statesmen and people who cherish and engage in Sino-Japanese friendship and make efforts for China-Japan long-term development," he said.

Editor: Yan