China said yesterday an annual leaders' meeting with Japan and South Korea scheduled for this month will be postponed because of "the current atmosphere" -- an apparent reference to the Japanese prime minister's repeated visits to a war shrine.
Leaders of the three countries meet once a year on the sidelines of a conference with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, scheduled to take place Dec. 12 to Dec. 14 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"Due to the current atmosphere and conditions, the seventh China-Japan-Republic of Korea leaders' meeting will be postponed until a proper date," China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its Web site.
It didn't give a reason, but Beijing has reacted with fury to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to a Tokyo shrine that honors Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.
Koizumi apologized this year on the 60th anniversary of the war's end, but China said he "swallowed his words" when he visited the shrine in October.
The shrine dispute threatens to deepen historic rifts between Japan and China -- East Asia's largest economy and its fastest rising power.
China had already ruled out one-on-one meetings between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
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