BEIJING, Dec. 30 -- Four days after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visited the Yasukuni shrine, and China will not let the incident go.

On Saturday Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi demanded Japan repent and correct the mistake, a rare statement from a senior official about a single incident.

His statement followed a series of condemnations by the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, the Foreign Minister as well as foreign affairs committees of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Yasukuni honors Class-A war criminals of WWII and is always a source of trouble in China-Japan relations. Each time the prime minister or other Japanese politicians visit the shrine, there is outcry from China.

This is not just a mundane event in bilateral politic: Enshrining war criminals humiliates all who suffered in that devastating war.

No one thinks of enshrining Hitler nor labels Jewish anger an overreaction when Auschwitz is brought up.

Such rules do not seem to be applied to Japan.

Hideki Tojo, the man who spearheaded the invasion of China and orchestrated Japan's strikes in the Pacific has repeatedly received homage from leading Japanese politicians. Besides Abe, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi visited the shrine every year in his tenure from 2001 to 2006.

China is not the only victim of these Japanese war criminals.

In December there are no major anniversaries of Japan's invasion of China, but there is one for the United States. On Dec. 7, 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor, killed about 2,000 and dragged a country far away on the other side of the ocean, into the war.

As Yang said, Abe's visit to Yasukuni is provocation of all peace loving people of the world, a gross trampling upon historical justice and human conscience, and an outrageous challenge to victory in the war against fascism and the post-war international order established on the basis of the Charter of the United Nations.

Naturally, as a close neighbor, China wants a peaceful Japan which acknowledges its past crimes, honors its victims and vows not to do it again.

China's concern is not only geopolitics but a common reaction of all war victims.

It is the whole world's responsibility to denounce war criminals and their followers.