China premier visit to Japan to be shortened: Report

Tokyo, Mar 18: Chinese premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Japan has been shortened in response to Tokyo's saying there was no proof that women who worked in wartime brothels were coerced, Yonhap news agency said today.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sparked outrage overseas when he said earlier this month there was no evidence that Japan's government or army had forcibly brought women, many of them Korean, to serve Japanese soldiers in the brothels.

Abe has made a priority of repairing bilateral ties with China, which were strained by his predecessor's repeated visits to a Tokyo shrine to war dead, and visited China for a summit soon after taking office last year.

No dates have been officially announced for Wen's trip, the first such visit since 2000, but Japanese media have said he may arrive on April 11.

A Chinese source quoted by Yonhap in Beijing said that the visit had been shortened to three days from five in response to Abe's comments. Japanese media has also said the trip would be shortened, but did not give a reason.

According to Jiji news agency, Wen will meet Abe on April 11 and give a speech to parliament on April 12, becoming the first Chinese leader to do so.

Slashed from the agenda by the shortened trip was a planned TV appearance during which Wen would have had direct dialogue with Japanese citizens, as predecessor Zhu Rongji did in 2000, Jiji added.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official said Wen's trip was still being planned and he did not know the details.

Abe has sought to dampen the furore by repeating that a 1993 apology stood and expressing sympathy for the suffering of the ''comfort women,'' as they are known in Japan, but on Friday the US ambassador to Japan said he believed women were forced to act as sex slaves for soldiers during World War Two.

Abe said on Friday that a 14-year-old government study had found no evidence that the government or military had kidnapped women to serve in the brothels.

South Korea criticised the statement, which a South Korean Foreign Ministry official termed ''regrettable.'' ''He will never be able to conceal the truth of history,'' the official added.

But China's criticism of the comments has been relatively muted, and Wen on Friday again stressed Beijing's hopes for a steadier relationship with Tokyo, despite continuing tensions.

Reuters