Hong Kong angered by Japanese PM's visit to war shrine
( 2002-04-22 14:21 ) (7 )

Hong Kong trade union groups on Monday staged a protest against a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a controversial war shrine.

Dozen of members from leading labour unions, shouting slogans denouncing Japanese wartime atrocities in China, marched to the Japanese consulate to deliver a letter denouncing Koizumi's Sunday visit to the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo.

The shrine, a symbol of Japan's wartime imperialism, honors 2.5 million war dead including 14 designated as Class A criminals by the Allies in the trials that followed World War II.

The Hong Kong protesters demanded an apology from the Japanese government for its military atrocities during the war.

Lee Kwok-keung, spokesman for the demonstrators, said on government radio that Koizumi's visit was "a political move" aimed at "raising his popularity" after a recent plunge in public-opinion polls.

He called the visit a "wrong move", adding that it "hurt the feelings of the people of Hong Kong." Japan occupied Hong Kong, at the time a British colony, between 1941 and 1945.

China, which was at war with Japan from 1937 to 1945, is the main victim of Japanese imperialism and claims 35 million casualties.

Some 300,000 civilians were massacred in Nanjing alone, when Japanese troops embarked on an orgy of destruction, pillage, rape and murder after taking the city on December 13, 1937, say Chinese historians.

Allied trials of Japanese war criminals documented 140,000 victims.