• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Chinese Army Cancels Participation in Japan Music Festival - Kyodo

Posted on: Friday, 28 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Tokyo, 28 October: The People's Liberation Army of China has cancelled its planned participation in a Tokyo music festival to be hosted by Japan's Defence Agency next month, due apparently to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine earlier this month, agency officials said Friday [28 October]. China's Ministry of National Defence notified the Japanese side Thursday that China "will not join (the festival), given current conditions in the Sino-Japan relationship".

China has expressed strong indignation at Koizumi's 17 October visit to the shrine, which is viewed as a symbol of Japan's military past. China also said Tuesday the visit has made it very difficult to hold a Sino-Japanese summit meeting. An agency official said: "We expected Chinese participation in the festival to foster mutual trust, but we will continue promoting amicable interactions."

The two-day festival will start at Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo on 18 November, with some 1,000 band members from the Self-Defence Forces and US forces in Japan attending. It had been expected that about 50 members of the Chinese army would take part in it for the first time.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

More News in this Category