Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's expected visit to a Tokyo war shrine next week promises to unleash fury in Beijing, and yet even as the visit looms both sides have been working to ease tensions after he steps down.
Koizumi, who retires next month, has fed expectations that he will visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's World War Two surrender.
The shrine played a key role in the state Shinto religion that helped mobilise Japanese to invade Asia in the name of a divine emperor. Fourteen World War Two leaders convicted by an Allied tribunal as war criminals are now honoured there, along with the nation's 2.5 million war dead.
Koizumi's annual pilgrimages to Yasukuni have drawn bitter denunciations from other North Asian capitals, where they are seen as evidence of Japan's failure to face up to its wartime atrocities. He says he goes there to pray for peace.
Beijing and Seoul have warned Koizumi not to go to Yasukuni this time.
"China doesn't hold any hopes that Koizumi will help improve relations," Huang Dahui, an expert on China-Japan relations at the People's University in Beijing, told Reuters.
"But China's reaction will still be strong, given the state of public opinion and the particular timing," he said, referring to the surrender anniversary.
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