China denounced a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine on Monday, saying it suggested a lack of Japanese repentence for wartime aggression.
"China's position on this question has not changed at all," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "We are opposed to Japanese leaders paying their respects and worshipping at the Yasukuni Shrine to class-A war criminals."
Yasukuni commemorates war dead, including convicted war criminals.
"The essence of the Yasukuni Shrine question is whether the Japanese side can sincerely repent that aggressive period of history in the past and is directly related to the feelings of the people of the Asian countries that suffered, including China," the statement added.
After days of dithering, Koizumi paid homage at the shrine on Monday, avoiding a visit on the emotive August 15 anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two.
The decision backtracked on a promise to honour the nation's war dead on that day due to concerns over how China and South Korea, victims of Japan's wartime aggression, would respond.
China has warned Koizumi repeatedly that visiting the shrine would only add tension to a relationship already troubled by the publication of school textbooks that whitewash Japanese wartime atrocities.
"His purpose in doing this is nothing but to woo votes from Japanese rightists as well as to beautify Japan's past aggressions," an editorial of China Daily said.
"It is clear to visit the Yasukuni Shrine is not to mourn the common war dead, nor an internal issue of Japan," it said. "It is, in fact, a touchstone of the Japanese government's attitude towards the history of aggression."
Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan told Japanese counterpart Makiko Tanaka in July that Tokyo must end the dispute over Japan's war history to avoid damaging ties between the Asian powers.
The question of visits to Yasukuni by Japanese prime ministers and cabinet members has been an irritant in Tokyo's ties with its Asian neighbours since then-Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone made an official visit to it in 1985.
The Yasukuni Shrine commemorates Japan's 2.6 million war dead since the 19th century, including wartime premier General Hideki Tojo and other military leaders who were convicted and hanged as war criminals for their roles in Japan's invasion of Asian neighbours in the 1930s and 1940s.
Japan angered South Korea and China earlier in August when it rejected calls for major changes to a history textbook which tried to justify Japan's invasion of much of Asia in the first half of the 20th century.
