Sixty years after the end of World War II, Japan, which once wreaked havoc in the Asia-Pacific region, is still seeing rocky relations with neighbors as a resultof its wrong attitude toward history, Japan's Asahi Shimbun daily said Monday.

Maintaining friendly relations with Asian countries, especially with China, is one of the most important issues in Japan's post-war foreign policy, the newspaper said in an editorial.

However, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to a war criminal related shrine has become a stumbling block to the efforts in improving ties, the editorial said.

"What epitomizes the Japanese government's posture is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine," thepaper said.

Koizumi has paid annual pilgrimages to the shrine which honorsW.W.II Class-A war criminals alongside with other Japanese war dead since taking office in 2001, in defiance of barrages of criticism from Asian countries including China and South Korea.

"The prime minister's attitude has raised anger among the Chinese and given the impression that Japan's unrepentant of whatit did in the past," the daily said.

"Koizumi has soured Japan's relations with China by persistingin visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, ... Has Koizumi seriouslyweighted the gains and losses caused by his actions in the fieldof foreign policy?" questioned the paper.

Meanwhile, opinion polls carried on Japan's Mainichi Shimbundaily also found on Monday 76 percent of the respondents regardedthat the premier hadn't done enough in efforts to improve Japan-China relations.

Forty-five percent of the respondents said Koizumi should stopvisiting the shrine, up four points from that of December, while support rate for the premier dropped four points to 42 percent.

Another editorial by the Asahi Shimbun daily also criticizedJapanese Education Ministry's recent approval of the disputed history textbook, accused by some Asian countries of white washing Japan's atrocities committed in its colonial rules and aggressionsin Asian countries in the first half of the 20th century.

"The most disturbing thing about this textbook, however, is its consistent attempt to portray Japan's modern and contemporary history that has bright and dark sides in the most self-servinglight," the newspaper said.

"It was Japan that forced terrible sacrifices on its Asianneighbors," the paper said, in response to an assertion made bythe textbook's producer, the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, that the book is "completely free from propaganda by the Allies that criticized Japanese invasions."

"If the society truly cares about Japan, it must fully respectthe feelings of people in other nations. This is the only way to deepen mutual understanding with Japan's neighbors," the editorial said.

The textbook detonated an arsenal of resentment in some Asiancountries. In South Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun has unleashed unprecedented harsh words over Japan's tampering with history,reversing his pervious modest policy on this issue.

Japan's attitude on history also sent tens of thousands of Chinese demonstrators onto streets over the past several weeks,rendering the largest anti-Japan protest ever since the two countries resumed diplomatic ties in 1972.

The demonstrators asked the Japanese government to face up tothe history and called for boycotting Japanese goods as a spate of Japanese enterprises were known to have bankrolled the textbook.

Yoshio Nakata, executive president of the Japan Association forthe Promotion of International Trade, told Xinhua that someJapanese businesses do not have a clear knowledge of the historyand part of them are under the thumb of right-wingers.

He said a lot of Japanese do not have a deep understanding ofthat history and the youth are indifferent to politics, for which the post-war education system is to blame.

"The history that youngsters learn from their textbooks is anextremely important matter. Parents, guardians and teachers must keep their eyes open and choose for their communities the type oftextbooks that will be suitable for future member of the international community," the Asahi Shimbun daily said.

As for Japan's bid for a permanent membership in the UNSecurity Council, the paper warned that Japan's ambition had metstrong objections from Asian countries.

"What strategy can Japan have when it cannot even win thesupport of its neighbors? " the paper questioned.

Source: Xinhua