Japan's outgoing ambassador to China said on Friday that he saw worrying
signs of a worsening in the way people in Japan and China regarded each other.
Ties have been frayed since Junichiro Koizumi became Japanese prime minister
in 2001 and began annual visits to a Tokyo war shrine that critics say
symbolizes Japan's past militarism.
Some convicted war criminals are honored at the Yasukuni Shrine along with
the nation's 2.5 million war dead.
There is lingering resentment in China over Japan's invasion and occupation
of parts of the country from 1931 to 1945, and anger at the way that Japanese
school history books tend to gloss over wartime atrocities.
Ambassador Koreshige Anami said in Beijing on Friday that, while the history
issue was a serious matter in bilateral ties, he was more concerned about the
way ordinary Chinese and Japanese felt about each other.
"I think what is an even more serious issue is that the thoughts of the
people of both countries are growing distant," Anami told a news conference in
Beijing, part of which was aired by the NHK network.
He is due to leave Beijing next week after five years in his post.
Anami's comments came a day after Japan, in yet another sign of strained
bilateral ties, said it would postpone a decision on making fresh yen loans to
Beijing until after its fiscal year ends on March 31.
A Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman said the delay did not mean Tokyo was
cutting off or freezing aid, but a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman criticized
the decision as unhelpful.
Japan has scaled back low-interest loans to a booming China in recent years
and had already decided to halt fresh yen loans to China by the time of the
Beijing Olympics in 2008.