Japan says China war holidays 'domestic matter'

China says some 300,000 people died during the Nanjing massacre - figures Japanese nationalists dispute

 

Japan has called China's decision to approve two national days to mark the Nanjing massacre and Tokyo's World War Two surrender "a domestic matter".

Chinese lawmakers on Thursday approved 3 September as Victory Day and 13 December as a memorial day for Nanjing, Chinese state media said.
A Chinese spokeswoman said marking the days was "a necessity in current circumstances".
Japan's top government spokesman said it was an internal affair of China.
"I can't deny there is a question why they have to set up these commemoration days more than 60 years after the war," Yoshihide Suga said.
"But this is a domestic matter for China, so the government declines to comment on it."
Chinese state media said that national memorial activities would be held on the two days each year.
Ties between Japan and China have been severely hit by a territorial row over islands in the East China Sea.
A visit late last year by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Yasukuni Shrine - where Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals are honoured - also angered regional neighbours.
China accuses Japan of failing to adequately address its wartime actions. Japan says it has apologised many times - but recent controversial comments by senior Japanese figures have fuelled regional anger over alleged rewriting of history.
'Cannot deny it' Meanwhile, former Japanese leader Tomiichi Murayama has urged against any revision of a landmark Japanese apology over its wartime use of sex slaves.
The Kono statement - issued by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono in 1993 - acknowledged that women had been forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops, with the Japanese military involved in the establishment and management of the process.
This statement was based in part on evidence given by 16 Korean women.
Last week, however, Japan's top government spokesman said that the government was considering setting up a committee to re-examine the womens' stories.
Speaking in Tokyo on Thursday, Mr Murayama, who was prime minister from June 1994 to January 1996, said that the Kono statement was based on evidence and called any move to re-examine it "absurd".
He also cautioned against any moves to revisit his historic 1995 statement to mark 50 years since the end of the war, which offered a "heartfelt apology" for actions during Japan's "colonial rule and aggression" which "caused tremendous damage and suffering".
"He [Japanese PM Shinzo Abe] cannot deny it, as the Murayama statement has been adopted by all prime ministers whether they are from the Liberal Democratic Party or Democratic Party of Japan," he said.
"In a sense, it is agreed by international communities and becomes a definition. It is unreasonable and impossible to deny it," said Mr Murayama.
Comments from Mr Abe in the past have suggested he could revisit this statement. Most recently, however, his spokesman has said that he will leave it alone and may instead issue a statement "that will suit the 21st Century".