MOSCOW, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - China has expressed serious concern after Japanese lawmakers visited a controversial war shrine in Tokyo, the Chinese Foreign Ministry official statement said Friday.
Earlier on Friday, a group of 110 lawmakers, including members from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party as well as the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan and some other parties visited the Yasukuni Shrine in the country's capital.
In January, China's Ambassador to the United Kingdom Liu Xiaoming said that "Yasukuni Shrine has long been the spiritual symbol and instruments used by Japanese militarists for their war efforts, in their war of aggression and colonial rule."
The Yasukuni Shinto shrine in Tokyo, founded by Emperor Meiji in 1869, is dedicated to those who lost their lives while serving Japan.
While the shrine lists more than two million men, women and children, who died in wars, the list also includes about a 1,000 war criminals, 14 of which are considered to be A-Class. This fact arouses concern and displease of many Chinese and Korean officials, who consider the honoring of the war criminals along with ordinary Japanese soldiers to be controversial.
