Wu canceled a scheduled meeting with Koizumi aimed at improving ties Monday and returned to China after saying in a speech relations between the two countries are at a 30-year low.

``Thirty-five million Chinese died and China lost hundreds of billions [of dollars] at the hands of Japanese aggressors, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said Tuesday. ``How can a Japanese leader act rashly by visiting Yasukuni? How can he not be more considerate for the feelings of people in China and Asia?''

He cited Koizumi's comments about his trips to the Yasukuni shrine as the reason Wu canceled her meeting with him and left Japan a day early.

``What's regrettable is that Japanese leaders continued to make unfavorable remarks about their visits to the war shrine during Vice Premier Wu's visit,'' Kong said.

Wu's cancelation also came a day after President Hu Jintao had an argument in Beijing with a top Japanese ruling party official over Koizumi's visits to the shrine, which includes war criminals among the dead it honors.

Bilateral ties have also been damaged by Japanese textbooks that China says gloss over wartime atrocities and an argument about gas drilling rights in the East China Sea.

``It appears there was a heated exchange'' when Liberal Democratic Party secretary-general Tsutomu Takebe met Hu, government spokesman Hiroyuki Hosoda said in Tokyo Tuesday.

Takebe told Hu that Koizumi's annual visits to the shrine in Tokyo are a domestic matter, state broadcaster NHK reported earlier. Hu demanded Takebe retract the remarks, it said.

Koizumi insisted in parliament on the day Wu arrived in Japan that his visits do not glorify past militarism and said China and other nations should stay out of the issue.

The comments probably mean that Koizumi has decided to ignore China's demand and go to the shrine again, said Katsuya Okada, leader of main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, Tuesday.

``I think what Koizumi said was a big factor in Vice Premier Wu's decision to cancel,'' Okada said.

Shinzo Abe, Takebe's deputy in the ruling LDP, described the cancelation as rude, Kyodo newswire reported.

``Again, the Chinese side offered no apology'' since refusing to apologize after mainland demonstrators smashed windows at Japanese diplomatic missions in China last month, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Akira Chiba.

They were protesting against the schoolbooks approved by Japan and the Japanese government's bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, something over which China has veto power.

The protests stopped after Koizumi last month apologized for Japan's wartime aggression during a summit of Asian and African nations in Indonesia and met Hu at the gathering in an attempt to improve ties.

``We hope that the Japanese leader will seriously consider the feelings of the victim nations that suffered from Japanese aggression during World War II,'' Foreign Ministry Kong said. ``We want to know whether or not he truly meant what he said in Jakarta and whether or not he will act as he said.''

Hu told Koizumi at their Jakarta meeting that Japan should show its remorse through actions as well as words.

BLOOMBERG