Japan Aide Rips China ‘Fussing’ : Diplomacy: Complaint by top official about Beijing’s emphasis on Tokyo’s war record draws fire from Chinese scholars.

A top Japanese official complained publicly for the first time Monday about China’s “fussing” over the history of Japan’s aggression and urged the two nations to emulate France and Germany in putting aside bitter memories in favor of regional and global cooperation.

The comments by Koji Kakizawa, parliamentary vice minister for foreign affairs, spurred a tirade of criticism from Chinese scholars participating in a Yomiuri newspaper symposium that is reviewing 20 years of diplomatic relations between Tokyo and Beijing.

Kakizawa observed: “The most important thing for the future of the Japan-China relationship is that it shift from one of hurtful criticism focusing on . . . reminders of the war toward . . . a broad-minded alliance in which our two countries can work together to help resolve problems of a more far-reaching, even global, nature. . . . The future cannot be built if we are all busy fussing about the past.

“Japan and China must strive to emulate the model of cooperative relations that France and Germany have forged . . . transcending the suffering and damage of war,” he added.

Kakizawa said his comments were the first such public remarks by a Japanese leader.

Japanese frustration has been building in recent years over constant demands by both China and South Korea that Japan apologize for its wartime activities. Japanese officials recently have started talking privately about what they call a “myth” that Japan has failed to make sufficient amends.

But Xu Dan, deputy director of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, responded at the symposium by asserting that “a small number of Japanese,” including members of the Cabinet, have failed “to come to terms with the issue of who is responsible for causing the war.”

He also condemned a law that Japan enacted in June to send noncombat troops overseas on a regular basis to participate in disaster relief and U.N. peacekeeping missions. “What we are worried about is not the present but the future. The fear is that the (peacekeeping troop dispatch) law is a start in a bad direction,” Xu said.

Liu Jiangyong, deputy director of the East Asia section of the China institute, added that the Chinese cannot condone the Japanese “worshiping” of their war dead at the Yasukuni Shrine, a Shinto center used until the end of World War II to whip up support for Japan’s armed forces.

Kakizawa retorted that he could not understand why China, which has sent army engineers to Cambodia, is complaining about the pending dispatch of Japanese troops to perform the same tasks.

He also criticized China’s recent purchase of a fleet of Russian Sukhoi 27 fighter aircraft and reports that Beijing is considering buying an aircraft carrier now under construction at Ukraine’s Nikolayev shipyard on the Black Sea. If China buys the aircraft carrier, “the number of countries who feel a threat from China will increase,” he told the symposium.

During a break, Kakizawa told The Times that Japan would be forced to review its economic assistance to Beijing if it buys the carrier. “Our aid (over six years) is $5.6 billion. The aircraft carrier would cost $2 billion,” he said.

Earlier, former Foreign Minister Saburo Okita warned at the symposium that Japan would apply its “four principles” of foreign aid to China if it went ahead with the carrier purchase. One principle declares that Japan will restrain aid to nations that spend excessively on weaponry.