China urges Japan to face up to history

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun on Friday urged Japan to face up to its history and sincerely correct its mistakes. "If Japan cannot face up to history, cannot examine its conscience and sincerely correct its mistakes, no matter how developed its economy is, it will never stand up morally or psychologically," he said. Zhang told reporters at a news briefing that the dangerous political tendency of the Japanese right-wing forces had once plunged Asia into a major disaster. "Such forces, if not stopped but used, if encouraged and indulged out of domestic political needs, will become further emboldened and lead Japan further down a dangerous path," Zhang said. "If this tendency should continue, it is not impossible that the historical tragedy will be repeated, and that will throw Asia and the entire world into disaster and will cause eventual trouble to Japan," he said. Japan has, until this day, remained reluctant to explicitly recognize the nature of that war of aggression, Zhang said. Some Japanese political figures have swaggered into the Yasukuni Shrine and paid tribute there without feeling guilty or ashamed, dismissing the feelings of the people in other Asian countries, which were victims of its past aggression. "Should Japan continue to act like that, how could it be forgiven by the Asian people and how could its neighboring countries rest assured of it?" Zhang said.