The government will make clear to other countries what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meant earlier this week when he compared the rocky relations between Japan and China to those of Britain and Germany prior to World War I, officials said Friday.
Kyodo News has learned that supplementary remarks made by the prime minister's interpreter may have led the foreign media to misconstrue Abe's point.
The government has repeatedly said that what Abe wanted to convey is that a war between Japan and China is not possible because it would cause devastation not only to the two countries but to the world as a whole.