China has urged Japan to look into a media report that a Japanese rightist group has constructed a shrine on one of the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which are claimed by China, Japan and Taiwan, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing said Sunday.
If the report is true, the Japanese government must remove the structure and ensure that similar incidents are not repeated, Ning Fukui, deputy director of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, reportedly told Takanori Kitamura, a minister of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, on Saturday night.
Kitamura responded by telling Ning that the government was aware that members of the group, the Japan Youth Federation, had returned from a trip to the islands but had no knowledge of their activities there.
The Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun reported Saturday that the group built a small shrine on one of the islands, partly to honor the memory of Japanese who starved to death there in World War II.