'Japan can never escape World War II responsibility with Obama's visit,' says China

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Friday that Japan can never escape its responsibility for World War II as U.S. President Barack Obama made a historic visit to Hiroshima, which was devastated by the world's first nuclear strike more than 70 years ago.

Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima since it was hit by an American nuclear bomb in 1945. Along with the second nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, these attacks forced Japan to accept an unconditional surrender that hastened the end of the war.

Without making an apology, Obama has said he would use the visit to Hiroshima as an occasion to promote his vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

But concerns persist among Japan's neighbors, which have suffered Japan's wartime atrocities, that the trip by Obama to Hiroshima could allow Japan to portray itself as a victim of the war.

"Hiroshima deserves attention; so does Nanjing," Wang told a forum, according to a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

Japan invaded the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing in 1937 and committed a massacre in which China says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital.

"Victims deserve our sympathy, but the perpetrators should not get away from their responsibility," Wang was quoted as saying.

The U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima killed 140,000 people, and the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki killed 70,000 people. (Yonhap)