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The latest visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japanese war criminals, by Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's met with strong protests from China on Tuesday.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing "strong protests" against the move which severely harmed the people victimized by Japanese militarist aggression and damaged the political basis of Sino-Japanese relations.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing summoned Japanese Ambassador to China, Miyamoto Yuji, and lodged strong objections to Koizumi's sixth visit to the shrine. He told Miyamoto that the repeated visits to the shrine "challenge international justice" and "trample on the conscience of mankind".

"China strongly requests Japanese leaders to make efforts to remove political barriers and bring the Sino-Japanese ties back on track as soon as possible," Li said.

Relations between the two countries have been chilled by Koizumi's visits to the shrine where 2.5 million Japanese war dead, including 14 convicted class A war criminals of World War II, are honored.

Koizumi has visited the shrine each year since coming to office in 2001. But it's the first time he's been there on the August 15 anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II.

The China-Japan Friendship Association, a Chinese civil group, issued a written statement on Tuesday denouncing the visit. "His act has severely hurt the feelings of people in China and other Asian countries and we express our utmost indignation and strong protest over his wrong deeds," the statement said.

More than 30 Chinese people gathered outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing on Tuesday morning to protest against the visit. The anger over the visit also spread to Nanjing, capital of eastern China's Jiangsu Province, where at least 300,000 Chinese were massacred by Japanese troops in 1937.

She Ziqing, a 74-year-old survivor, raged, "How can he feel no regret for the brutal deeds of the wartime Japanese militarists?" he said.

In Hangzhou, capital of China's Zhejiang Province, survivors of Japan's germ warfare in China were "indignant" over Koizumi's move.

Yang Dafang, whose father died in the germ warfare of 1940, said Koizumi's visits to the shrine not only hurt the feelings of the Chinese victims and their relatives but also undermined the relations between the two countries. During the war, the Japanese army's Unit 731, developed biological weapons and conducted experiments on humans causing the deaths of many Chinese people.

Chinese experts labeled Koizumi's visit "a political farce" which they said was certain to have a damaging impact on China-Japan relations.

"The visit to the Yasukuni Shrine is a matter concerning the political basis for China-Japan relations and demonstrates Japan's view of its actions during the war," said Liu Jiangyong, an expert at Tsinghua University.

Gao Hong, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said the successors to Koizumi would find themselves in a difficult situation as this latest shrine visit had further soured Tokyo's ties with China and other Asian neighbors.

"It will be hard for the statesman replacing Koizumi to deal with the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine," said Gao. He's set to step down in September.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the front-runner to replace Koizumi, has backed the visits and went to the shrine himself on August 15 last year. Media reports say he secretly did so again in April. But he refused to say whether he would go there if he became Japanese prime minister.

In Japan this latest visit also prompted protests from opposition and coalition parties, politicians and civil groups. Japan's three opposition parties criticized Koizumi's visit. Yukio Hatoyama, secretary general of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan said "the visit was an absurd act which could not be more irresponsible".

Japanese Communist Party leader Kazuo Shii said Koizumi's visit "exposed his irresponsibility regarding the country's foreign affairs" and the party lodged "a strong protest" over his actions.

Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party, said the premier's visit was a mistake. "August 15 should be a day when we share a pledge of no more war. But (the premier) is trying to change the nature of the anniversary into a day of justifying sacrifice for the state," she said.

Public opinion polls show that the Japanese people are divided on the shrine visits. In a recent opinion poll conducted by Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper 49 percent of the respondents were opposed to Koizumi's visits with 43 percent in favor.

(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2006)