The Japanese association, Fushun Miracle Successor, issued a statement in Beijing on Wednesday condemning Japanese leaders' annual Yasukuni Shrine visits and Japan's "distorted history textbooks" and called for increased communication between China and Japan.

"The relationship between China and Japan now faces its hardest challenge since official diplomatic relations were established in 1972," the statement said.

"Japanese leaders should acknowledge the country's aggressive military history not just on paper, but should seek to correct its wartime crimes to improve the credibility of the Japanese government," it said.

It also denounced the Japanese right wing's distortion of the country's history textbooks and appealed to Japanese schools not to use the "twisted" book.

"We are here to let Chinese people know that not all Japanese agree with what the politicians say and do," said Kumagai Shinitirou, secretary general of the association. "Those people who deny the truth represent only a small number of Japanese people."

Japan's attitude towards its past "is directly related to its future and the image that remains in the hearts of the people of its Asian neighbors. Japan cannot survive without sincere introspection," he said.

The 500-member association was established in 2002 to replace the association of the Japanese returned from China, which was setup in 1957 by prisoners of war once detained in China, at Fushun and Taiyuan, to safeguard peace and promote Sino-Japanese relations.

(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2005)