China on Tuesday urged Japan to stop using language to cloud what really happened at the Meiji-era industrial sites, which were inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage list on Sunday.[Special coverage]
"Forced recruitment and the enslavement of people were heinous crimes committed by Japanese militarists during their aggression and colonization." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Tuesday at a daily press briefing.
According to media reports, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said that a comment by Japan UNESCO representative Kuni Sato, who acknowledged that a large number of people "were brought against their will and were forced to work under severe conditions", did not mean that the work was forced.
Separately, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that as he understood it, Koreans working at some of the sites were not deemed forced labor, which is banned under the International Labor Organization's Forced Labor Convention, as "forced to work" was translated as "required to work" in Japanese documents, according to media reports.
"Facts cannot be denied neither history distorted," Hua said, adding that Japan was merely playing with semantics over a serious issue.
She said that such an act could draw disapproval from the international community and prove, once again, that Japan lacks sincerity over its past actions.
"We urge Japan to take a responsible attitude, face squarely and properly deal with relevant historical issues as well as take concrete actions to win trust from its Asian neighbors," She said.
