China rejects Japan's protest over 'comfort women'

BEIJING - China on Wednesday rejected Japan's call for it to withdraw an application to register records of Japan's wartime sex slaves with UNESCO.

"We will not accept Japan's unreasonable protest, and will not drop our application," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily news briefing.

Tragedy of 'Comfort Women'

Earlier on Wednesday, Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said that Japan had lodged a protest over the application and had asked China to withdraw it.

However, Hua said, "The aim of China's application is to firmly bear history in mind and cherish peace, respect human dignity and prevent behaviors against humanity, human rights and human beings from happening again."

On Tuesday, Hua confirmed that China had applied to UNESCO to list documents relating to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre and Japan's wartime sex slaves, so-called "comfort women," on the Memory of the World Register.

Created in 1997, the Memory of the World Register protects the world's documentary heritage.

Historians estimate that 200,000 women were forced into sexual servitude by Japanese forces during WWII, most of them from countries invaded by Japan at that time.