China slams Japan over suicide allegations
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-29 15:51

China on Thursday slammed Japanese government's allegation that a Japanese diplomat in Shanghai committed suicide after Chinese agents pressured him to provide classified information, calling it a "vile behavior".

Qin Gang, Foreign Ministry spokesman, answers a question at the ministry's routine press briefing in Beijing this this December 27, 2005 file photo. [fmprc.gov.cn]

"We express our strong indignation at the vile behavior of the Japanese government which deliberately smears China's image," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a news briefing.

The diplomat, an official at the Japanese consulate in Shanghai who has not been identified, committed suicide in 2004.

Japan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Yoshinori Katori said Wednesday the government believed "there was an impermissible act by the Chinese security authorities" that led to the suicide.

Relations between Beijing and Tokyo have deteriorated rapidly in recent years. The two countries have feuded over interpretations of World War II, the exploitation of maritime resources and conflicting territorial claims.

China has also objected strongly to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni war shrine that critics consider a glorification of Japan's conquest of East Asia in the first half of the 20th century.